The  European  Tour 


The  European  Tour 


BY 

GRANT  ALLEN 

Author  of  **  Florence,"  ««  Paris," 
"Belgium,"  etc. 


I 


NEW    YORK 

DODD,  MEAD   AND   COMPANY 

1899 


Copyright^   iSgQi 
By  Dodd,  Mead  and  Company. 


tHttibcrsttg  13resst 

John  Wilson  and  Son,  Cambridge,  U.S.A. 


Contents 

Chapter  *  Page 

I.    The  Use  of  Europe i 

II.    What  Parts  of  Europe  to  Visit     .     .  19 

III.  The  Hasty  Visitor 35 

IV.  England  :  The  Country 40 

V.    London 66 

VI.    France  :  Paris 82 

VII.    France  :  Outside  Paris 99 

VIII.    Belgium  and  Holland no 

IX.    The  Rhineland 140 

X.    Switzerland,  etc 156 

XI.    The  Threshold  of  Italy 172 

XII.    The  Great  Italian  Cities 192 

XIII.  Florence 200 

XIV.  More  About  Florence 212 

XV.    Venice 241 

XVI.    Romewards 257 

XVII.    After  Rome 284 

XVIII.    The  Author's  Apology 293 


The  European  Tour 

CHAPTER   I 

THE    USE    OF    EUROPE 

'\7^0UNG  man,  go  to  Europe! 

■■■  It  is  not  without  due  reflection  that  I  ven- 
ture thus  to  reverse  the  geographical  direction  of  a 
famous  saying.  Horace  Greeley  requires  revision. 
As  America  now  stands,  I  believe  by  far  the  most 
valuable  education  a  young  man  can  obtain  is  a 
European  trip^  undertaken  during  the  years  most 
often  devoted  to  a  college  course.  It  costs  no 
more ;  it  may  even  cost  less ;  and  I  make  bold  to 
say  it  is  immeasurably  more  educative. 

If  I  were  a  European  born,  indeed,  I  would  not 
have  the  audacity  thus  to  address  the  American 
public.  Readers  might  suspect  me  of  that  cele- 
brated "  condescension  observable  in  foreigners  " 
on  which  Lowell  insisted.  But  I  speak  from  ex- 
perience.    I  am  myself  a  brand  plucked  from  the 


2  The  European  Tour 

burning.  Born  and  bred  on  t'lc  American  conti- 
nent, I  came  to  Europe  as  a  very  young  man  j  I 
have  lived  here  now  for  over  thirty  years  j  and  I 
have  slowly  learnt  how  to  appreciate  its  educational 
advantages.  Allowing  that  America  is  the  best 
country  in  which  to  be  born,  I  still  maintain  that 
Europe  is  the  best  country  in  which  to  get  a  yearns 
education, 

I  do  not  mean  a  year  spent  at  school  or  college. 
I  do  not  even  mean  a  year  of  strenuous  and  con- 
scientious sight-seeing,  undertaken  solely  with  an 
eye  to  edification.  I  mean  a  year  of  travel^  en- 
joyment, observation  \  a  year  of  free  use  of  lungs 
and  limbs ;  a  year  of  pleasant  touring  through 
beautiful  country  and  beautiful  cities.  The  best 
learning  of  all  is  the  learning  we  acquire  without 
ever  knowing  it.  Mugging  up  a  subject,  cram- 
ming for  an  examination  —  these  are  the  ways  to 
undermine  and  destroy  our  interest  in  knowledge. 
Going  about  the  world,  to  amuse  ourselves,  with 
our  eyes  open,  —  that  is  the  way  to  preserve  and 
enlarge  it.  For  everything  depends  upon  the  en- 
joyment we  receive.  Nothing  makes  impressions 
so  vivid  as  pleasure.  Just  as  it  is  better  exercise 
to  play  base-ball,  cricket,  foot-ball,  lawn-tennis,  to 
row,  to  ride,  to  swim,  to  climb  mountains,  than  to 
drill  in  a  prison  yard  or  to  walk  up  and  down  a 


The  Use  of  Europe  3 

measured  mile  in  Central  Park,  so  it  is  better  edu- 
cation to  visit  the  Louvre,  Notre-Dame,  Venice, 
Munich,  Athens,  than  to  grub  up  Greek  roots 
with  a  dictionary  and  grammar.  Let  the  other 
education  come  afterwards,  if  you  like ;  but  gain 
first  a  living  interest  in  the  languages,  the  litera- 
tures, the  history  of  Europe  by  delightful  tours 
through  the  lands  that  produced    them. 

Nor  do  I  intend  this  solemn  advice  for  paradox. 
I  utter  it  as  serious  practical  reasoning.  You  are 
a  father,  let  me  suppose,  and  you  are  thinking  of 
sending  your  son  to  college.  Why  to  college? 
Now,  sit  down  and  argue  it  out  with  yourself  like 
a  man  —  which  will  be  really  the  best  for  him  in 
the  end  ?  Will  he  learn  more  that  is  ultimately 
useful  to  him  in  life  by  spending  three  years  over 
dead  languages  which  he  never  fully  masters,  and 
for  which  he  can  have  no  personal  use  hereafter  — 
or  by  travelling  from  a  year  to  eighteen  months  in 
Europe  ;  seeing  England,  France,  Germany,  Italy, 
Switzerland ;  storing  his  mind  with  knowledge  of 
art,  knowledge  of  history,  knowledge  of  geography, 
knowledge  of  human  nature ;  gaining  an  insight 
into  the  manner  of  thought,  of  speech,  of  life,  and 
of  industry  among  the  living  peoples  who  have  con- 
tributed to  build  up  the  population,  the  laws,  and 
the  institutions  of  his  own  country  ?     I   say  un- 


4  The  European  Tour 

hesitatingly,  the  latter.  One  year  in  the  great 
university  we  call  Europe  will  teach  him  more  than 
three  at  Yale  or  Columbia.  And  what  it  teaches 
him  will  be  real,  vivid,  practical,  abiding  ;  a  part  of 
himself  thenceforth;  flesh  of  his  flesh,  and  blood 
of  his  blood  ;  ingrained  in  the  very  fibre  of  his 
brain  and  thought ;  an  inalienable  possession  to 
carry  through  life  with  him.  He  will  read  deeper 
meaning  thenceforward  in  every  picture,  every 
building,  every  book,  every  newspaper;  he  will 
have  put  himself  in  touch  with  the  earlier  phases 
of  human  thought  and  craft  in  every  one  of  their 
manifold  departments. 

Only  two  obstacles,  I  believe,  have  pi  evented 
everybody  in  America  from  recognising  lorg  since 
that  a  year  in  Europe  ought  to  be  an  indispensable 
part  of  every  young  American's  liberal  education. 

The  first  obstacle  is  the  long-surviving  Puritan 
idea — -equally  rife  in  England  —  th?!  knowledge^ to 
be  solid  and  useful,  must  be  laboriously^  painfully^ 
and  almost  unwillingly  acquired — that  what  is 
learned  with  ease,  with  enjoyment,  with  delight, 
almost  unconsciously  to  the  learner,  cannot  be 
really  valuable.  Learning  is  taken  as  a  sort  of 
penance ;  in  the  sweat  of  his  brow,  people  think, 
must  man  till  the  field  of  knowledge.  The  exact 
opposite,  I  believe,  is  the  actual  truth ;  only  what  is 


The  Use  of  Europe  5 

learned  with  joy  and  spontaneously,  ever  really  and 
deeply  benefits  the  learner.  "  No  profit  comes 
where  is  no  pleasure  ta'en,"  says  the  poet :  "  Study 
what  you  most  afFect "  is  sound  wisdom  as  well  as 
good  poetry.  Few  men  remember  in  middle  life 
any  of  the  beggarly  stock  of  Greek  and  Latin  they 
acquired  for  the  moment  at  school  or  college. 
Why  ?  Because  they  never  cared  for  it ;  there- 
fore they  never  really  learned  it.  They  cribbed  it 
up  for  the  moment,  with  the  aid  of  a  Bohn's  trans- 
lation, to  pass  an  examination  or  gain  a  degree; 
and  as  soon  as  that  was  done,  they  gladly  forgot  it 
all.  How  different  is  the  knowledge  one  has  drunk 
in  with  pleasure  in  examining  some  stately  cathe- 
dral, some  exquisite  temple,  some  fresco  of  Fra 
Angelico's,  some  relief  from  the  perfect  chisel  of 
Pheidias  !  Those  things  and  the  knowledge  of 
them  live  with  one  forever.  You  don't  try  to 
remember  them.     You  could  rCt  forget  them. 

The  second  obstacle  is  the  good  old  belief,  still 
more  or  less  current,  that  "a  European  education" 
unfits  a  young  man  for  life  in  America  —  gives  him 
ideas  and  sympathies  out  of  harmony  with  those 
of  the  mass  of  his  fellow-countrymen.  I  believe 
there  is  some  grain  of  truth  in  this  prejudice,  if  by 
"  a  European  education  "  is  meant  an  education  at 
Oxford  or  Heidelberg.     I  don't  think   European 


6  The  European  Tour 

universities  afford  the  best  training  for  a  man  who 
has  to  earn  his  living  by  commerce  or  finance  in  the 
United  States  or  Canada.  But  a  real  "  European 
education  "  is  quite  another  matter  —  the  sort  of 
education  that  is  got  by  seeing  Europe  —  the  educa- 
tion of  which  Europe  itself  is  the  main  factor.  To 
graduate  in  that  great  school  is  easy  and  pleasant. 
Wherever  a  man  is  going  to  live  and  work,  how- 
ever a  man  is  going  to  earn  his  livelihood,  it  can 
do  him  nothing  but  good  to  have  seen  and  under- 
stood London,  Paris,  Vienna ;  to  have  learnt  how 
men  built  at  Cologne  and  at  Oxford ;  to  have  real- 
ised how  men  painted  at  San  Marco  in  Florence 
or  at  the  Hospital  at  Bruges;  to  have  beheld  the 
Roman  Forum  and  the  Athenian  Acropolis  j  to 
have  stood  beside  the  Pyramids  —  which  are 
Europe  enough  for  my  purpose  —  and  to  have 
walked  with  a  torch  through  the  pictured  Tombs 
of  the  Kings  at  Thebes.  All  that  is  education  ten 
thousand  times  better  than  one  can  get  out  of 
books ;  and  the  American  can  only  obtain  it  in 
perfection  by  European  travel. 

By  far  the  best  and  truest  teachers  are  the  eyes. 
Books  substitute  for  them  the  ears^  and  even  the 
cars  but  symbolically.  The  current  misapprehen- 
sion about  what  constitutes  a  good  education  dates 
back  to  the  days  when  travel  was  difficult,  danger- 


The  Use  of  Europe  7 

ous,  and  expensive,  —  when  men  had  to  be  content 
with  book-knowledge  about  most  subjects  of  hu- 
man interest.  At  the  present  day  that  misappre- 
hension persists  unduly,  out  of  accord  with  our 
times;  it  has  lived  on  into  an  age  when  travel  is 
cheap,  safe,  and  comfortable,  and  when  first-hand 
knowledge  is  easier  and  pleasanter  to  acquire  than 
second-hand.  Yet  we  insist  upon  setting  our 
young  men  to  puzzle  out  Homer  and  Herodotus, 
who  are  to  them  mere  names,  when  half  an  hour 
spent  intelligently  among  the  Parthenon  sculptures 
At  the  British  Museum  would  give  them  a  more 
real  and  vivid  interest  in  Hellas  and  the  Hellenes 
than  months  of  poring  over  irregular  verbs  or  the 
uses  of  the  optative.  Moreover,  if  once  you  have 
learned  to  love  and  sympathise  with  Hellenic  art, 
you  are  already  more  than  half  a  Hellene;  the  lan- 
guage, the  poetry,  the  history  of  Hellas  will  become 
easy  and  simple  to  you,  because  you  want  to  know 
them  :  you  will  study  them  now  with  enthusiasm 
and  pleasure,  out  of  pure  desire  to  understand  and 
appreciate  the  beautiful  things  that  have  begun  by 
interesting  you.  I  well  remember  a  striking  remark 
which  a  lady  once  made  to  me  at  Venice  —  "  His- 
tory seems  to  be  real  here." 

History  seems  to  be  real!      That  is  the   true 
secret  of  the  great  good  of  travel.      Till  you  go 


8  The  European  Tour 

to  see  the  tombs  of  Charles  the  Bold  and  Mary 
of  Burgundy  at  Bruges,  you  have  probably  never 
troubled  your  head  for  one  moment  about  the  ex- 
istence and  fate  of  the  Burgundian  duchy.  But 
as  soon  as  you  have  seen  those  exquisite  monuments, 
you  cannot  help  reading  about  them  j  and  when 
you  go  on  to  Dijon,  you  put  two  and  two  together; 
or  when  you  see  the  Burgundian  statues  in  the 
Renaissance  sculpture  gallery  at  the  Louvre,  you 
build  up  your  knowledge,  piecing  this  and  that ; 
till,  little  by  little,  without  an  effort  on  your  part, 
you  find  ^hat  what  was  once  a  vast  unconscious 
blank  has  filled  itself  up  everywhere  with  facts  and 
instances.  You  begin  to  understand  and  know  your 
Burgundy ;  it  has  wrought  itself  into  your  brain 
by  many  twining  strands  which  cannot  ever  again 
be  lightly  untwisted. 

Furthermore,  one  of  the  surviving  absurdities  of 
our  existing  system  of  education  is  the  ridiculous 
importance  still  attached  to  the  acquisition  of  lan- 
guages. A  great  many  people  speak  as  if  knowl- 
edge of  tongues  were  the  highest  conceivable  form 
of  knowledge.  "  Such  a  very  accomplished  girl ! " 
they  say  :  "  why,  she  can  speak  three  languages  ! " 
The  fallacy  is  due  to  the  traditional  notion  that 
Latin  and  Greek  constitute  "  a  liberal  education." 
That  notion  was  natural  enough  in  the  sixteenth 


The  Use  of  Europe  9 

century,  when  most  knowledge  had  still  to  be 
dug  out  of  books^  and  when  books  were  mainly 
written  in  the  dead  languages.  It  is  absurd  at  the 
present  day,  when  knowledge  is  chiefly  to  be  gained 
by  contact  with  things^  and  when  all  useful  works 
are  written  in  or  translated  into  the  various  vernac- 
ulars. Yet  so  strangely  does  the  old  idea  persist 
that  most  people,  when  they  talk  of  abandoning 
Greek  and  Latin  as  the  basis  of  education,  think 
of  "  modern  languages  "  as  the  only  tenable  alterna- 
tive. As  though  you  could  get  any  more  education 
out  of  existing  French  or  existing  German  than 
out  of  the  early  speech  of  Greece  and  of  Italy  ! 

I  am  not  prejudiced  against  the  academic  system. 
I  certainly  am  not  opposed  to  it  from  sheer  igno- 
rance. To  guard  against  misapprehension  on  this 
score,  I  will  even  venture  to  add  that  I  am  an 
Oxford  graduate,  a  first-class-man  in  classics,  and 
that  I  was  for  several  years  of  my  life  a  classical 
master  in  English  public  schools,  and  a  Professor 
of  Classics  in  a  colonial  college.  Therefore  I 
hope  I  do  not  speak  with  the  mere  jealousy  of  the 
unlearned,  who  think  slightingly  of  arts  they  have 
not  themselves  acquired.  But  my  own  experience 
has  been  that  all  that  was  valuable  in  my  education 
began  after  1  had  left  the  University.  It  is  from 
thingSy  not  from  words^  that  one  may  learn  m    .t  of 


10  The  European  Tour 

what  is  truly  useful.  If  a  professor  wants  to  teach 
young  men  natural  history  or  anatomy,  does  he 
make  them  read  books  ?  Not  a  bit  of  it.  He 
takes  them  out  into  the  fields,  and  sets  them  to 
collect  and  observe  for  themselves  the  various 
plants  and  flowers  in  all  their  stages.  He  pi'ts 
them  to  watch  the  developing  leaf,  the  opening 
petals  i  to  note  how  the  stamens  stand,  and  how 
insects  disperse  the  fertilising  pollen.  He  gets  them 
to  catch  and  examine  bees  and  butterflies,  to  cut 
them  up  so  as  to  observe  their  internal  structure 
under  the  microscope,  and  to  learn  at  first  hand  by 
actual  inspection  how  the  creatures  are  built  up,  in 
head  and  limb  and  organs  and  integuments.  That  is 
the  source  of  all  real  knowledge.  Books  may  be 
used  concurrently,  no  doubt,  as  useful  helps  to  accu- 
rate observation  ^  but  those  books  themselves  are  at 
best  but  registers  of  previous  careful  and  excep- 
tionally fortunate  observations.  Their  use  is  to 
supplement ,f  not  to  supersede^  individual  inspection. 
Science  is  but  the  record  of  things  seen  and  noted. 
So  too  with  chemistry  and  geology.  We  do  not 
set  the  beginner  to  read  books,  books,  books.  We 
turn  him  into  a  laboratory^  with  test-tubes  and  blow- 
pipes, to  find  out  for  himself  the  composition  of 
substances ;  or  into  the  fields  with  a  hammer,  to 
determine  for  himself  the  structure  of  rocks,  and 


The  Use  of  Europe  1 1 

to  note  their  dip,  their  tilt,  their  weathering,  their 
sculpture.  Books  are  useful  in  their  place,  of 
course,  to  help  him  on  his  way ;  to  direct  his 
attention  to  what  others  have  observed  ;  and  to 
point  out  the  most  fruitful  methods  of  personal 
investigation.  But  at  best  they  are  guides  to 
knowledge^  not  knowledge  itself.  They  show  you 
where  to  look,  that  you  may  see  and  understand ; 
they  are  finger-posts  which  point  you  the  road  to 
the  museum,  not  the  actual  museum  and  all  its 
contents. 

Now,  travel  holds  the  same  position  with  regard 
to  mankind,  its  history,  its  industry,  its  arts,  its 
organisation,  as  laboratory  work  holds  to  chemistry, 
field  work  to  geology,  and  dissection  to  biology. 
If  you  want  to  know  and  understand  the  world  of 
men,  you  must  go  and  see  it.  If  you  want  to 
know  the  origin  of  the  art  of  building,  the  art  of 
painting,  the  art  of  sculpture,  as  you  find  them 
to-day  in  contemporary  America,  you  must  look 
them  up  in  the  churches  and  the  galleries  of  early 
Europe.  If  you  want  to  know  the  origin  of 
American  institutions,  American  law,  American 
thought,  and  American  language,  you  must  go  to 
England ;  you  must  go  farther  still  to  France, 
Italy,  Hellas,  and  the  Orient.  Our  whole  life  is 
bound  up  vMth  Greece  and  Rome,  with  Egypt  and 


1 2  The  European  Tour 

Assyria.  In  this  connection,  I  would  say,  there 
are  certain  lands  which  have  a  first  claim  upon  the 
American,  and  also  on  the  modern  western  European 
—  the  lands  which  lie  in  the  direct  line  of  ancestry 
of  our  own  civilisation.  To  see  these  is  the  first 
duty  we  owe  to  our  own  culture.  It  we  care  at 
all  for  our  intellectual  development,  we  ought  at 
least  to  make  a  strenuous  effort  to  visit  them. 
China  and  Japan  do  not  belong  to  our  world  —  do 
not  form  links  in  the  immediate  genetic  chain  of 
European  and  American  civilisation.  Algeria  and 
Russia,  Norway  and  Denmark,  hardly  enter  into  it. 
Even  Spain  is  rather  a  backwater  on  the  course  (to 
vary  the  metaphor)  than  an  integral  portion  of  the 
main  stream.  But  England,  France,  Italy,  Constan- 
tinople, Greece,  Assyria,  Egypt  —  I  name  them  in 
inverse  order,  like  one  looking  backward  over  the 
history  of  development  —  do  so  belong  to  the  direct 
line  of  our  culture :  and  some  acquaintance  at  any 
rate  with  all  these  lands,  or  at  least  with  their 
ancient  arts  and  monuments,  is  of  the  highest  value 
as  part  of  a  truly  liberal  education. 

Sight  will  teach  one  much  more  about  them  all 
than  mere  language.  Gibson  the  sculptor  knew  no 
Greek ;  but  he  was  a  far  truer  PIcllenist  than  half 
the  graduates  of  Harvard  or  of  Oxford.  I  have 
met    enthusiastic    archaeologists   who    had    merely 


The  Use  of  Europe  1 3 

picked  up  what  Latin  they  knew  from  deciphering 
inscriptions,  but  who  were  nevertheless  scholars  to 
put  to  shame  most  of  our  college-bred  students. 
We  can  learn  more  of  what  Greeks  really  thought 
and  felt  by  a  few  visits  to  the  sculpture  at  the 
British  Museum  than  by  hours  of  poring  over 
^schylus  and  Aristophanes.  Not  that  I  under- 
rate the  value  of  the  last,  —  for  the  few  who  really 
possess  the  linguistic  faculty.  But  as  a  rule,  only 
about  five  per  cent  of  our  college-bred  lads  ever 
really  learn  and  assimilate  enough  Greek  to  feel 
they  understand  and  enter  into  Hellenic  thought ; 
while  a  schoolgirl  who  speaks  no  tongue  but 
English  can  easily  be  made  to  read  the  meaning  of 
the  iEginetan  marbles  in  the  Pinakothek  at.Munich. 
Or,  to  take  another  and  still  more  unequivocal 
example.  No  one  has  yet  deciphered  the  ancient 
Etruscan  language.  Nobody  can  do  himself  much 
good  by  reading  even  so  admirable  a  work  as 
Dennis's  Cities  and  Cemeteries  of  Etruria  by  his 
own  fireside,  without  objects  at  hand  for  reference 
and  identification.  Such  knowledge  as  that  is 
mere  false  knowledge,  —  like  the  knowledge  of 
chemistry  or  of  botany  obtained  from  books,  and 
as  soon  forgotten  as  read.  But  go  to  Volterra,  and 
stand  among  cyclopean  Etruscan  walls ;  go  to 
Assisi,  and  descend  into  the  tombs  of  the  Etruscan 


14  The  European  Tour 

Volumnii ;  go  to  Tarquinii,  and  roam  through 
painted  Etruscan  chambers  of  death  —  and  you 
must  feel  you  have  entered  into  the  very  soul  of 
Etruria.  Then  read  Dennis,  if  you  will,  by  the 
side  of  the  objects  he  describes  and  deciphers  for 
you ;  and  you  will  realise  at  once  how  vastly  more 
his  words  now  mean  to  you.  It  is  "  the  specimen 
that  teachesy'  as  wc  say  in  biology  ;  the  book  merely 
interprets. 

Well,  in  the  sciences  which  deal  with  external 
nature,  such  as  chemistry,  geology,  zoology,  phys- 
ics, everybody  in  America  is  thoroughly  aware  of 
the  need  for  the  direct  method  of  observation  and  ex- 
periment. But  because  America  is  a  comparatively 
new  country,  lying  remote  from  the  origins  and 
remains  of  early  art,  early  architecture,  early  insti- 
tutions, early  history,  the  need  and  value  of  the 
direct  method  of  observation  in  the  sciences  which 
deal  with  T?ian  and  his  products  is  not  quite  always 
equally  well  recognised.  And  even  when  it  is 
recognised,  the  recognition  is  too  often  in  a  narrow 
specialist  sense ;  the  investigator  goes  to  inspect  a 
particular  object  for  a  particular  purpose.  He 
wants  to  discover.  American  scholars  have  done 
great  and  splendid  work  in  this  way,  as,  for  ex- 
ample, in  Greece.  But  what  I  plead  for  here  is 
more  general  recognition  of  the  educational  value  of 


The  Use  of  Europe  1 5 

travel  at  large^  apart  from  research  in  the  more 
special  sense  of  the  word.  I  plead  that,  just  as  a 
general  acquaintance  with  literature  is  expected  of 
educated  men,  so  should  be  a  general  acquaintance 
with  countries  and  their  contents.  1  plead  that 
young  men,  instead  of  receiving  their  whole  edu- 
cation within  a  single  country  —  the  United  States 
—  and  that  a  country  unequalled  for  the  relative 
uniformity  and  homogeneity  of  its  system  over  a 
vast  area  —  should  be  sent  regularly  to  travel  for 
at  least  six  months  in  Europe  (a  year  is  better,  and 
two  years  still  more  excellent),  so  as  to  familiarise 
them  with  the  origins  of  their  own  world  and  their 
own  institutions,  to  give  them  the  wholesome 
mental  shock  of  a  complete  reversal  of  many  pre- 
conceived opinions.  If  it  is  good  for  a  young  man 
to  read  Shakespeare  and  Dante,  Virgil  and  bopho- 
cles,  it  is  better  for  him  to  have  lived  in  the  actual 
world  from  which  Shakespeare  and  Dante,  Virgil 
and  Sophocles  drew  all  their  inspiration.  Only 
Florence  can  teach  you  fully  to  understand  the 
Divina  Commedia ;  only  Athens  can  teach  you  fully 
to  understand  the  Jjax  and  the  Electra. 

It  is  to  the  young  man^  therefore,  and  to  the 
young  man's  father,  that  I  specially  address  my- 
self in  this  chapter.  I  want  him  to  consider 
whether  a  year  in  Europe  is  not  better  spent  than 


1 6  The  European  Tour 

a  year  (shall  we  say  ?)  at  Cornell  or  Princeton. 
Let  him  do  the  one,  by  all  means  i  but  let  him  not 
leave  the  other  undone.  To  have  seen  Europe  is 
a  very  great  gain ;  and,  whatever  comes,  it  cannot 
be  taken  aw:\y  from  him.  He  may  fail  in  busi- 
ness, but  he  has  the  memory  of  the  Grand  Canal 
and  the  Doges*  Palace ;  he  may  get  encrusted  in 
clogging  wealth  and  overwhelmed  with  affairs, 
but  he  has  beheld  the  great  Van  Eyck  at  Ghent, 
and  gazed  in  the  face  of  the  Sistine  Madonna  at 
Dresden  ;  he  may  gain  the  whole  world  and  lose 
his  own  soul  —  his  higher  nature  —  on  the  Stock 
Exchange,  but  he  will  be  haunted  still  by  Dona- 
tello's  St.  George,  and  redeemed  at  times  by  the 
floating  form  of  Michael  Angelo's  David.  So 
once  more  I  say  it,  "  Young  man,  go  to  Europe ! " 
As  for  the  elder  members  of  families^  and  also  for 
the  women,  I  have  no  need  to  exhort  them.  Every 
American  hopes,  of  course,  some  day,  to  see  the 
world  across  the  Atlantic.  What  I  want  to  do 
here  is  to  point  out  the  advisability  of  making  the 
trip  while  still  young,  if  possible,  as  an  element  in 
education :  it  is  the  spiritual  importance  of  the 
European  tour  that  especially  appeals  to  me.  Not 
that  I  mean  to  advise  its  being  done  in  any  doctri- 
naire fashion.  Go  about  as  li  to  amuse  yourself ;  you 
will  pick  up  by  the  way  quite  as  much  knowledge 


The  Use  of  Europe  17 

as  is  easily  assimilable.  Grubbing  and  grinding 
means  overfeeding  the  brain.  I  once  asked  my 
friend,  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  ^^ow  it  came  about 
that  a  man  who  had  thought  so  u.uch  and  so  deeply 
as  he,  should  have  no  wrinkles  on  his  forehead  at 
over  seventy.  "  George  Eliot  asked  me  that,"  he 
said  with  a  smile;  'and  I  answered  at  once, 'I 
suppose  it  is  because  1  never  worried  over  anything. 
I  let  my  thinking  come  of  itself.  Never  in  my 
life  did  I  sit  down  deliberately  to  get  up  a  subject. 
I  read,  observed,  and  thought,  when  I  liked  and 
where  I  liked,  and  allowed  my  ideas  to  frame  them- 
selves naturally.'  "  The  result  is  that  Mr.  Spencer 
knows  more  at  this  moment  than  anybody  else  in 
the  whole  world ;  simply  because  all  his  knowledge 
has  come  to  him  spontaneously  and  vividly.  I  may 
further  add  that  he  does  not  know  the  letters  of  the 
Greek  alphabet  —  and,  as  far  as  I  can  judge,  man- 
ages 10  get  on  very  well  without  them. 

And  now  I  have  finished  with  the  educational 
value  of  the  European  tour,  and  will  not  again  re- 
cur to  that  serious  subject.  I  'm  not  going  to  bore 
you.  The  rest  of  my  book  will  be  more  practical  in 
character,  consisting  of  advice  for  persons  of  all 
ages  and  both  sexes  on  what  I  have  found  it  best 
worth  while  to  see,  and  on  how  to  set  about  seeing 
it  to  the  greatest  advantage.     I  want  to  throw  out 

2 


1 8  The  European  Tour 

hints  for  a  tour  in  Europe ;  and  I  feel  myself  the 
better  able  to  perform  this  delicate  task  because  I 
have  wasted  a  great  deal  of  good  time  myself  in 
seeing  the  wrong  things,  or  seeing  the  right  ores 
badly  and  in  the  worst  order ;  so,  having  learned 
by  my  mistakes  the  more  excellent  way,  I  am 
prepared  to  impart  my  knowledge  to  others  for  a 
moderate  sum  —  the  price,  that  is  to  say,  of 
this   little  volume. 


CHAPTER   II 

WHAT    PARTS    OF    EUROPE    TO    VISIT 

'  I  ''HE  use  of  Europe,  then,  we  are  agreed,  is 
•*•  that  Americans  should  employ  it  as  a  means 
of  culture.  Other  incidental  uses  it  may  possess, 
of  course  —  for  Europeans  j  as  a  place  to  make  a 
living  in,  to  love,  to  die  for.  But  these  are  unes- 
sential. Its  true  purpose  in  the  scheme  of  nature 
is  clearly  for  you  and  me  to  enjoy  ourselves  in, 
without  prejudice  to  a  little  concomitant  instruc- 
tion. At  least,  I  shall  say  so  to  my  American 
readers. 

This  point  being  taken  for  granted  at  the  outset, 
the  question  which  next  arises  is  somewhat  more 
serious,  —  what  parts  of  Europe  are  best  worth 
visiting  ? 

In  the  nature  of  things,  it  may  be  safely  asserted, 
England  is  the  land  which  possesses  the  greatest 
intrinsic  claim  upon  the  attention  of  Americans. 
In  the  nature  of  things,  only,  I  say  ;  for,  as  will 
be  seen  hereafter,  I  do  not  mean  to  advise  that  any 
large    proportion  of  a   moderate  visit  should    be 


20  The  European  Tour 

devoted  to  England.  The  reasons  in  favour  of 
seeing  England  are  indeed  obvious.  Englishmen 
were  the  first  great  colonising  body  in  the  United 
States  ;  and  though  I  believe  the  amount  and  pro- 
portion of  the  English  blood  in  America  is  usually 
overestimated  (as  against  Irish,  Scotch,  Welsh, 
Cornish,  French,  Dutch,  German,  and  so  forth),  it 
must  at  least  be  allowed  that  England  has  given 
the  Union  its  language,  its  laws,  its  political  insti- 
tutions, its  prevailing  feeling.  Therefore  the 
American  who  visits  Europe  with  some  desire  to 
know  and  learn  as  well  as  merely  to  enjoy  himself, 
will  naturally  wish  to  see  something  of  England. 
In  many  cases  he  traces  back  his  ancestry  more 
or  less  certainly  to  an  English  family.  Even  if  he 
comes  of  Dutch  or  French  or  German  parentage, 
the  history  of  England  is  still  part  of  the  history 
of  the  institutions  under  which  he  lives.  The  lit- 
erature of  England  is  the  literature  with  which  his 
childhood  has  been  most  familiar.  Stratford-on- 
Avon  and  Salisbury  are  to  him  a  sort  of  senti- 
mental Mecca.  More  than  Englishmen  even  he 
often  feels  the  glamour  of  England,  for  he  has  not 
always  been  familiar  with  its  antiquity  and  its 
beauty,  to  which  mere  use  and  wont  have  fre- 
quently dulled  the  senses  of  Englishmen.  If  you 
have  lived  from  childhood  beside  a  Norman  church 


What  Parts  of  Europe  to  Visit     2 1 

of  the  twelfth  century,  you  naturally  accept  Nor- 
man churches  with  as  little  enquiry  as  the  New 
Englander  accepts  his  own  place  of  worship ;  but 
if  you  have  never  before  beheld  one,  its  antique 
arches  come  upon  you  with  a  burst  of  surprise  and 
aesthetic  gratification. 

Literature  and  association,  indeed,  can  thus  gild 
for  us  even  the  commonest  and  vulgarest  objects. 
I  once  crossed  the  Atlantic  from  New  York  with 
an  eager  young  Pennsylvanian,  who  came  to  Eu- 
rope prepared  to  be  interested  in  everything  he 
saw,  including  even  the  first  glimpse  of  grimy 
Liverpool.  At  Lime  Street  station  we  had  a  few 
minutes  to  spare  before  taking  the  train  to  Lon- 
don ;  and  we  strolled  into  the  Refreshment  Room, 
to  consider  whether  it  would  be  possible  for  us  lo 
swallow  any  of  the  goods  provided  for  our  appetite. 
I  gazed  at  the  uninviting  wares  on  the  counter 
with  a  familiar  sinking.  "  The  only  thing  one 
could  venture  to  eat,"  I  said  at  last,  "  is  a  pork 
pie."  "  Pork  pic  ?  "  the  young  Pennsylvanian  ex- 
claimed with  delight.  "  Oh,  do  let  me  see  them  ! 
Why,  one  reads  about  them  in  Dickens !  " 

Allowing,  then,  that  many  natural  reasons  exist 
why  the  American  who  visits  Europe  should  desire 
to  pass  some  time  in  England,,  I  will  go  on  to  say 
why  I  think  that  time  should  be  cut  down  as  a 


22  The  European  Tour 

rule  to  a  much  smaller  proportion  than  has  of  late 
been  usual.  To  put  it  very  briefly,  the  chief  rea- 
son why  the  American  need  not  trouble  himself 
long  about  England  is  simply  this  —  that  he  knows 
it  almost  all  already.  The  very  facts  I  have  men- 
tioned above  implicitly  suggest  this  idea.  Eng- 
land to-day  is  so  like  America,  America  is  so 
largely  derived  from  or  based  upon  England,  that 
the  visitor  finds  little  vv^hich  is  fresh  and  interest- 
ing to  him,  little  that  is  unfamiliar,  little  that  is 
instructive.  He  is  still,  on  the  whole,  at  home  — 
in  an  older,  a  quainter,  a  more  picturesque  home, 
with  fewer  modern  conveniences  and  the  occa- 
sional outcrop  of  some  delightful  anachronism ; 
but  still,  taking  it  all  round,  at  home,  as  the  Ken- 
tuckian  considers  himself  at  home  in  Ohio,  or  the 
Bostonian  considers  himself  at  home  in  San  Fran- 
cisco. He  has  not  got  away  from  our  common 
Englishry. 

Another  reason  is  that  England  for  the  most 
part  is  horribly  modernised.  Especially  is  this  the 
case  with  London,  which  most  Americans  take  as 
their  sample  of  England.  Now  London  is  not 
an  old  town  at  all  as  it  stands  —  it  is  as  modern, 
indeed,  as  New  York  or  Boston  —  much  more 
modern  than  Quebec  or  New  Orleans.  There 
was  once  an  old  London,  it  is  true,  a  picturesque 


What  Parts  of  Europe  to  Visit     23 

mediaeval  city ;  but  it  was  almost  entirely  destroyed 
by  the  Great  Fire  in  the  reign  of  Charles  II. ;  and 
though  a  few  earlier  buildings  still  survive  as  by 
miracle  —  such  as  St.  Bartholomew's  in  Smithfield 
—  yet  the  town  as  a  whole  dates  back  at  best  but 
to  the  eighteenth  century,  while  most  of  it  is 
frankly  of  the  last  two  decades.  I  allow  that  the 
neighbouring  city  of  Westminster,  now  partially 
united  with  London,  retains  some  relics  of  the 
fabric  of  its  ancient  abbey,  stripped  of  ?ts  sculpture 
and  decorations  at  the  Reformation,  and  scraped 
and  cleaned  out  of  all  recognition  in  the  present 
generation  by  the  sacrilegious  vagaries  of  so-called 
"  restorers."  But,  looking  at  it  in  the  lump,  Lon- 
don is  almost  as  hrand-nnv  as  Chicago ;  it  contains 
little  or  nothing  of  historical  and  antiquarian  inter- 
est, and  of  local  origin,  to  delay  the  tourist.  Its 
collections  of  Greek  sculpture,  of  Italian  pictures, 
and  of  Egyptian,  Assyrian,  or  Babylonian  antiqui- 
ties, however,  brought  from  elsewhere,  stand  on 
quite  a  different  plane  ;  I  shall  discuss  the  impor- 
tance and  interest  of  these  in  the  special  chapter 
devoted  to  the  things  really  worth  seeing  in 
England. 

On  such  grounds,  then,  and  on  many  others 
which  will  become  more  apparent  in  subsequent 
chapters,  I  do  not  advise  any  long  stay  in  England. 


24  The  European  Tour 

I  recommend  the  tourist  rather  to  get  forward  as 
fast  as  he  can  to  Continental  countries^  which  possess 
three  greater  claims  upon  his  intelligent  interest  — 
let  alone  the  fact  that  they  are  vastly  more  enter- 
taining, for  England  is  not  an  amusing  country  to 
stop  in.  In  the  first  place,  the  Continent  is  more 
novel — contains  more  to  surprise,  to  interest,  and  to 
teach  the  traveller.  In  the  second  place,  it  is  older  } 
the  ancient  buildings,  the  historical  aspect  of  things, 
have  not  been  so  completely  overlaid  by  mere  mod- 
ern industrialism,  by  hotels  and  warehouses,  as  in 
all  parts  of  Britain.  In  the  third  place,  it  tells  you 
more  about  the  origin  of  things  ;  goes  further  into 
the  past ;  has  deeper  developmental  and  evolution- 
ary value.  For  these  three  reasons,  and  others,  I 
think  it  desirable  to  spend  a  relatively  small  time 
in  England,  with  a  relatively  long  time  in  France, 
Germany,  the  Low  Countries,  and,  above  all,  Italy. 
Moreover  —  and  this  is  an  important  point  too 
often  overlooked  —  I  think  the  tourist  ought  to 
take  England  last^  not  first,  in  his  trip  through 
Europe.  He  should  finish  off  with  London,  in- 
stead of  beginning  there.  And  my  reason  for  say- 
ing so  is  this.  By  far  the  most  interesting  things 
to  see  in  London  —  almost  the  only  interesting 
things,  indeed  —  are  the  collections  it  contains 
of  origin  other  than  English.      Now,  the  begin- 


What  Parts  of  Europe  to  Visit     25 

nings  of  these  things  are  best  studied  elsewhere  — 
either  in  the  lands  whence  they  came  or  in  Conti- 
nental museums.  London,  in  a  word,  possesses 
few  native  attractions,  but  extremely  rich  and  valu- 
able collections ;  and  these  are  scratch  collections, 
groups  of  objects  mostly  brought  from  elsewhere,  a 
little  haphazard,  and  only  truly  to  be  appraised  and 
appreciated  after  you  have  made  some  study  of 
greater  collections  elsewhere.  An  individual  ex- 
ample will  enforce  my  meaning.  The  National 
Gallery  in  Trafalgar  Square  contains  in  some  re- 
spects a  fine  collection  of  early  Italian  and  Flemish 
pictures.  But  you  can  only  really  understand 
those  pictures  after  you  have  travelled  in  Italy  and 
Flanders.  The  specimens  in  London  are  too  few 
in  number,  too  isolated  in  type,  to  permit  of  real 
compreheniiion  or  thorough  enjoyment.  After  you 
have  seen  Borgognone  at  the  Certosa  di  Pavia,  in- 
deed, you  can  appreciate  the  beautiful  Borgognone 
of  the  Two  St,  Catherines  in  Trafalgar  Square ; 
after  you  have  seen  Mantegna  at  Paris,  Milan, 
Florence,  and  Mantua,  you  can  discover  what  he 
is  driving  at  on  the  walls  in  London.  But  in  iso- 
lation,—  no!  Nobody  ever  understands  Italian 
art  till  he  has  travelled  in  Italy ;  nobody  ever  en- 
ters into  Flemish  art  till  he  has  viewed  the  Mem- 
lings  at  Bruges,  the    Van    Eycks  at    Ghent,   the 


26  The  European  Tour 

Dierick    Boutses    at    Brussels,   and    the    Quentin 
Matsyses  at  Antwerp. 

1  should  advise  therefore  (and  I  will  afterwards 
explain  more  fully  why),  that  the  tourist  should 
spend  not  more  than  a  fortnight  or  three  weeks  in 
England  at  the  beginning  of  his  tour,  and  should 
return  to  London  for  a  similar  period  or  somewhat 
less  before  going  back  to  America.  And  I  shall 
endeavor  to  point  out  to  him  briefly  what  objects 
he  ought  to  see  on  either  visit,  and  why  it  is  de- 
sirable for  him  to  see  them  in  this  order.  He  may 
think  at  first  he  is  being  trotted  about  like  a  child  j 
I  would  say  in  reply,  "  No ;  you  are  being  shown 
by  one  who  has  learnt  through  his  own  mistakes 
what  order  is  most  likely  to  unfold  Europe  to  you  in 
a  comprehensible,  enjoyable,  enlightening  fashion." 
I  am  telling  you  how  to  make  the  best  use  of  your 
time,  not  indeed  in  the  common  guide-book  sense 
of  rushing  you  blindly  through  as  many  things  as 
possible  in  a  given  period,  so  that  you  may  go  home 
and  boast  of  having  "  done  **  them,  but  in  the 
deeper  sense  of  taking  you  round  on  a  definite  plan^ 
so  that  at  the  end  of  your  trip  you  may  have  en- 
joyed yourself  throroughly,  and  yet  learned  and 
digested  as  much  as  was  possible.  If  you  will  put 
yourself  in  my  hands,  I  will  not  treat  you  irration- 
ally, but  will  tell  you  at  each  step  why  I  think  it 


What  Parts  of  Europe  to  Visit     27 

best  for  you  to  see  things  in  just  this  particular 
succession. 

I  will  also  add  here  by  anticipation  that  I  would 
advise  the  first  visit  to  England  (usually  under- 
taken in  spring,  when  the  country  is  at  its  best)  to 
be  spent  mainly  in  visiting  the  country  towns-,  and 
very  little  in  seeing  London ;  while  the  capital  it- 
self, with  its  immense  collections,  should  be  mainly 
relegated  to  the  final  visit.  In  this  way  you  will 
begin  by  seeing  England,  not  London  j  and  it  is 
England,  rural  England,  the  England  of  Shake- 
speare and  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers,  the  England  of 
cathedrals,  castles,  country  towns,  and  great  houses, 
that  is  at  once  most  unlike  and  most  near  America. 
Most  unlike,  because  it  contains  the  England  of 
the  past ;  most  near,  because  it  is  the  England 
from  which  America  started.  This  beautiful  Eng- 
land of  Oxford,  Cambridge,  Lincoln,  Salisbury, 
Exeter,  Lichfield,  this  England  of  broad  parks 
and  stately  manor-houses,  of  ruined  abbeys,  slow- 
flowing  rivers,  smooth-swarded  farms,  and  ivy- 
clad  castles,  is  at  its  best  in  May  and  June,  which 
are  also  the  most  propitious  moments  for  beginning 
an  extended  tour  in  Europe.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  squalid  modern  industrialism  of  London  may 
be  left  till  any  time  —  it  is  most  characteristically 
squalid  and  gloomy  in  late  autumn  j  while  its  mag- 


28  The  European  Tour 

nificent  though  confusingly  varied  collections  are 
visited  to  best  advantage  after  rather  than  before  a 
trip  to  the  Continent. 

Do  I  then  recommend  the  now  fashionable 
route,  from  America  to  the  Mediterranean,  begin- 
ning at  Genoa?  Emphatically,  no  !  That  seems  to 
me  the  worst  possible  order  in  which  an  American 
can  first  visit  Europe.  If  he  knows  Italy  already, 
well  and  good  j  but  if  this  is  his  trial  trip,  he  should 
avoid  Genoa.  In  the  first  place,  he  should  be  let 
down  gently;  instead  of  that,  the  route  I  indicate 
plunges  him  at  once  into  the  midst  of  the  dirt  and 
discomfort  of  the  Mediterranean.  In  the  second 
place,  he  goes  on  as  a  rule  from  Genoa  to  Milan, 
Venice,  or  Florence,  and  is  at  once  bewildered  by 
the  unfamiliarity  of  the  new  world  of  art  into 
whose  midst  he  is  pitchforked,  and  spoiled  for  ap- 
preciation of  northern  art  immediately  afterward. 
Paradoxical  as  it  may  sound  to  say  so,  the  best 
way  to  work  at  history  teaching  by  examples  is 
to  work  backward.  Hence  the  good  old  plan  of 
coming  first  to  Liverpool  or  Southampton^  and  then 
trending  south  by  England,  France,  Belgium, 
Germany,  Italy,  is  undoubtably  the  best  one.  In 
this  way  you  dig  back  through  the  relatively 
familiar  Renaissance  and  Gothic  architecture  of 
England  and  France,  and  the  relatively  comprehen- 


What  Parts  of  Europe  to  Visit     29 

sible  painting  and  sculpture  of  the  Low  Countries 
and  the  Rhine,  to  Venice  and  Florence,  and 
finally  to  ancient  Rome,  still  more  ancient  Athens, 
and  very  ancient  Egypt.  You  proceed  by  degrees 
from  the  known  to  the  unknown  ;  you  trace  your 
own  familiar  arts  and  crafts  and  buildings  back- 
ward, till  you  see  them  emerge  at  last  from  primi- 
tive barbarism. 

England  first,  then  —  a  brief  visit  to  England, 
chiefly  to  the  country,  to  be  hereafter  more  par- 
ticularised —  and  next  to  England,  France^  more 
especially  Paris.  At  least  four  weeks  should  be 
given  to  this  tour  —  much  more  if  possible.  I  do 
not,  however,  advise  that  the  tourist  who  designs  to 
spend  only  from  six  months  to  a  year  in  Europe 
should  endeavour  to  see  France  as  a  whole.  He 
had  better  take  Amiens,  or  Rouen,  or  both,  on  his 
way  from  London  to  Paris  —  a  single  night  at 
either  would  just  do,  but  two  nights  are  better; 
and  then  confine  himself  to  the  capital  itself,  with 
its  immediate  neighbourhood.  If  he  has  plenty  of 
time,  however,  he  might  also  undertake  a  short 
tour  on  the  Loire,  visiting  Orleans,  Blois,  Tours, 
and  Angers,  and  returning  to  Paris  via  Le  Mans 
and  Chartres.  The  only  other  places  in  France 
which  I  think  it  worth  his  while  to  visit  (unless  he 
is  making  a    very   extended  stay   in  Europe),  are 


30  The  European  Tour 

Rhelms,  Laon,  and  Dijon,  any  of  which  can  be  con- 
veniently taken  on  the  road  to  Switzerland.  Full 
information  as  to  what  to  see  in  Paris,  and  how  to 
see  it  to  the  best  advantage,  is  given  in  the  little 
work  entitled  Paris,  in  my  series  of  Historical 
Guides. 

France  should  certainly  come  first  after  England. 
But,  second,  I  would  place,  without  hesitation,  the 
cities  of  Belgium.  Indeed,  in  intrinsic  historic 
importance,  they  rank  even  higher  than  Paris. 
The  traveller,  however,  should  not  go  direct  from 
Paris  to  Brussels,  which  is  a  very  bad  order ;  he 
should  take  the  fourgreat  towns  in  the  due  succession 
of  Bruges,  Ghent,  Brussels,  Antwerp.  Full  infor- 
mation about  what  to  see  in  each  of  these  towns 
will  be  found  in  the  volume  of  this  series  devoted  to 
The  Cities  of  Belgium.  It  must  be  borne  in  mind 
that  the  Low  Countries  were  the  first  great  trading 
and  manufacturing  district  in  the  Middle  Ages  ; 
their  civilisation  is  older  and  deeper  than  that  of 
England  or  France ;  and  they  rank  second  after 
Italy  in  artistic  importance.  It  is,  of  course,  open 
to  the  tourist  to  go  straight  from  London  to 
Bruges,  taking  Paris  later ;  but  I  recommend 
rather  the  route  sketched  out  above.  It  is  less 
direct,  I  admit,  but  it  is  far  more  instructive. 

Belgium,  again,  is  immeasurably  more  important 


What  Parts  of  Europe  to  Visit      3 1 

than  Holland^  which  latter  country,  indeed,  hardly 
calls  for  a  visit  on  any  ground  save  that  of  its  often 
rather  tedious  paintings.  But  it  is  so  easily  visited 
after  Belgium,  and  can  be  fairly  well  seen  in  so 
very  short  a  time,  that  it  is  a  pity  not  to  include  it 
in  a  comprehensive  plan  for  visiting  Europe. 
Remember,  the  interest  of  Belgium  is  almost 
entirely  mediaeval;  the  intcreit  of  Holland  belongs 
mainly  to  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries, 
Belgium  is  beautiful;  Holland  is  at  best  merely 
quaint  and  picturesque.  Belgium  has  every  form 
of  art  in  high  perfection ;  its  architecture  is  sub- 
lime ;  Its  painting  is  faultless.  Holland  has  little 
architecture  save  of  a  bricky  sort ;  and  its  painting 
belongs  almost  entirely  to  the  late  type  of  Rem- 
brandt, which  appeals  to  artists  and  cor  noisseurs, 
but  not  to  the  general  picture-lover.  The  little 
collection  of  Memlings  in  the  Hospital  of  St. 
John  at  Bruges  (one  of  the  great  sights  of  Europe) 
deserves  longer  study,  in  my  opinion,  than  the 
whole  of  Holland  put  together.  Therefore  I 
would  say,  if  possible,  devote  three  weeks  or  so  to 
the  towns  of  Belgium,  and  see  Holland  in  a  few 
days  afterwards. 

The  order  of  the  Dutch  tour  is  prescribed  for  you 
by  nature.  Go  direct  from  Antwerp  to  the  Hague 
—  Rotterdam  need   not  detain  you.     Three  days 


32  The  European  Tour 

should  be  ample  for  seeing  the  Hague,  Delft,  and 
Scheveningen,  all  of  which  lie  within  a  few  miles 
of  one  another.  Then  give  a  day  each  to  Leyden 
and  Haarlem;  three  days  to  Amsterdam;  and  so 
back  to   Brussels. 

Next  in  order  of  evolution  comes  the  beautiful 
Rhine  country  —  the  part  of  Germany  earliest  civi- 
lised nder  Charlemagne,  and  the  highroad  by 
which  the  culture  of  the  Latin  south  slowly  wedged 
itself  into  the  solid  mass  of  Teutonic  barbarism. 
You  are  now  getting  gradually  back  to  Romewards. 
London  is  modern ;  Paris  is  more  ancient ;  the  Low 
Countries  represent  pure  mediaevalism ;  on  the 
Rhine  you  first  touch  the  connecting  Hnk  of  the 
old  Prankish  Empire^  which  carries  on  the  Roman 
civilisation  into  modern  Europe.  Here  you  must 
stop  first  at  Aix-la-Chapelle,  to  see  Charlemagne's 
own  church,  in  which  he  was  buried,  and  whose 
plan  he  took  from  the  Roman  buildings  of  the 
decadence,  in  particular  San  Vitale  at  Ravenna. 
Thence  you  will  go  on  to  Cologne ;  and  from 
Cologne,  up  the  Rhine  towards  Switzerland  and 
Italy. 

You  may  loiter  as  long  as  you  like  on  the  way, 
of  course,  among  the  delightful  Rhine  towns,  and 
at  Bale,  Lucerne,  Interlaken,  and  so  forth ;  but  I 
do  not  recommend  you  before    going  to  Italy  to 


What  Parts  of  Europe  to  Visit     33 

turn  aside  from  your  path  to  visit  Nuremberg  and 
Germany  in  general;  certainly  not  to  Berlin,  Dres- 
den, or  Munich.  The  reason  for  this  I  will  ex- 
plain further  on.  It  is  taking  things  in  a  palpably 
wrong  order.  Indeed,  I  believe  it  will  be  best  to 
push  on  for  Milan  straight  from  Cologne  —  not  at 
one  burst,  of  course  (for  that  were  to  miss  the 
scenery),  but  by  gradual  stages.  Say,  spend  a  day 
or  two  on  the  Rhine  —  make  it  a  week  if  you 
like ;  then,  a  night  at  Bale,  a  night  at  Lucerne ; 
take  the  steamer  up  the  Lake ;  and  go  rejoicing 
over  the  Gotthard,  the  most  beautiful  railway  jour- 
ney in  the  world,  past  the  Italian  Lakes,  to  Milan. 
And  there  —  you  are  in  Italy  /1 

Italy^  and  what  comes  after  Italy,  we  must  con- 
sider hereafter.  It  will  suffice  to  say  in  this  chap- 
ter that  Italy  is  the  goal ;  and  that,  after  Italy,  you 
will  understand  everything  else  by  the  light  of  what 
you  have  learned  in  the  "  cities  of  the  soul  "  — 
Venice,  Rome,  and  Florence. 

Briefly,  then,  I  would  say;  given  a  year  —  a 
month  of  it  in  England;  of  which,  a  fortnight  in 
the  country  at  the  start,  and  another  fortnight 
in  London  at  the  finish.  After  that,  a  month  in 
Paris  i  with  a  week  later  on,  as  you  return  from 
Italy.  Next,  a  month  (more  or  less)  in  Belgium 
and  Holland,    A  week  or  so  in  the  Rhineland.    And 

3 


34  The  European  Tour 

finally,  Italy  !  For  Italy,  a  month  or  six  weeks  at 
first  in  Florence ;  then,  a  month  in  Fenice ;  after 
that,  as  long  as  you  can  spare  in  Rome;  with  per- 
haps a  brief  visit  to  Naples.  Those  seen,  please 
yourself.  Let  it  be  Sicily,  Greece,  and  Egypt,  if 
you  like ;  or  let  it  be  a  return  by  Verona,  Meran, 
Innsbruck,  and  Munich,  to  the  Nuremberg  group, 
Dresden,  and  Berlin.  But  Italy  above  all  things  — 
Italy,  Itaiy,  Italy ! 

I  have  justified  my  book  if  I  succeed  in  making 
you  feel  that  Italy  is  the  key  by  which  you  may 
unlock  the  secret  of  Europe. 


CHAPTER   III 

THE    HASTY    VISITOR 

"  TJ^'^  ^^^  ®very  one  can  afford  so  long  a  time 
-■-'  to  see  Europe  in.  1  am  a  busy  man;  I 
want  to  go  right  through,  and  pick  out  the  kernel 
of  it  all  in  six  weeks.  What  advice  have  you  to 
give  me  ?  '* 

My  dear  Sir,  none.  Frankly,  I  do  not  write 
for  such  as  you.  You  ought  to  make  time  in  which 
to  afford  yourself  this  valuable  education.  It  is  not 
my  fault  if  you  persist  in  rejecting  so  great  salva- 
tion. Still,  I  will  do  my  best  for  you,  promising 
that  if^  by  hook  or  crook,  you  can  manage  it,  three 
months  is  four  times  as  good  as  six  weeks,  and 
half  a  year  four  times  as  good  as  three  months,— 
arithmetic  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding. 

Well,  grant  you  can  take  only  six  weeks  j  then, 
use  your  time  carefully  to  the  best  advantage. 
Don't  try  to  see  much  —  which  is  throwing  away 
your  money  ;  see  a  little^  and  see  it,  not  thoroughly 
(for  that  is  impossible  within  your  limits),  but  to 
the  best  advantage  under  such  disadvantages.     If 


36  The  European  Tour 

in  six  weeks  you  intend  to  see  London,  Paris, 
Brussels,  Switzerland,  the  Rhine,  Germany,  Milan, 
Venice,  Bologna,  Plorence,  Rome,  and  Naples, 
with  perhaps  a  flying  trip  in  your  spare  moments 
to  Athens  or  Algiers  —  my  book  is  not  for  you. 
I  cannot  help  you.  And  indeed,  you  need  no  help, 
save  a  railway  time-table.  You  can  dash  on  by 
yourself,  through  thick  and  thin,  like  John  Gilpin, 
and  go  home  with  the  proud  consciousness  of 
having  "  done  Europe."  I  write  rather  for  that 
growing  mass  of  your  countrymen  and  country- 
women who  wish  to  use  their  tour  as  a  means  of 
culture^  and  desire  rather  to  see  something  well  than 
to  see  everything  hastily. 

"  But  is  n't  it  better  that  I  should  get  some 
rough  idea  of  what  England,  France,  Germany, 
Italy,  and  Switzerland  are  driving  at,  than  that  I 
should  go  home  having  seen  just  one  corner  of 
Europe  ?  " 

My  dear  Sir,  this  is  a  matter  of  taste  and  of 
your  own  wishes.  If  you  would  like  to  behold 
with  your  bodily  eyes  the  mere  outside  of  many 
towns,  the  visible  life  of  many  nations,  that  is 
a  natural  and  by  no  means  unmeritorious  desire, 
with  which  I  do  not  presume  to  interfere  in  any 
way.  I  only  mean  to  say,  you  need  no  guidance. 
That  sort  of  trip  is  plain  and  obvious.    The  capitals 


The  Hasty  Visitor  37 

and  the  great  cities  form  its  natural  objectives; 
and  when  you  reach  them,  you  will  not  easily  miss 
the  things  you  most  require  to  see  in  them.  Cathe- 
drals and  palaces  do  not  require  to  be  sought  out 
with  a  microscope.  You  can't  go  out  in  London 
without  discovering  the  Houses  of  Parliament, 
Trafalgar  Square,  Westminster  Abbey,  the  Thames 
Embankment,  St.  Paul's,  Regent  Street,  and  the 
Empire  Theatre.  You  can't  go  out  in  Paris 
without  stumbling  at  once  against  the  Louvre, 
Notre-Dame,  the  Boulevards,  the  Rue  de  Rivoli, 
the  Opera  House,  the  Champs-£lysees,  the  world, 
the  flesh,  and  the  devil  in  general ;  and  you  will 
find  no  need  for  a  formal  introduction.  At  Flor- 
ence you  won't  require  to  be  told  by  an  intelligent 
bystander  which  is  the  Duomo  ;  at  Venice  you 
will  make  straight  by  instinct  for  the  Piazza  of 
St.  Mark's ;  at  Rome  you  can  readily  discover 
the  Forum,  the  Colosseum,  St.  Peter's,  and  the 
Vatican,  by  the  light  of  nature,  without  an  opera- 
glass.  Such  surface-knowledge  of  Europe  is  no 
doubt  a  great  deal  better  than  no  knowledge  at  all 
—  it  gives  you  at  least  a  mental  picture.  But  /*/ 
requires  no  guide-book.  You  go  where  you  will,  and 
you  see  what  pleases  yo  1. 

Let  us    suppose,  however,  you    are  a  traveller 
whose  time  is  really  limited  by  necessity,  and  that 


38  The  European  Tour 

you  wish  to  spend  six  weeks  to  good  purpose  in  seeing 
Europe.  Then  I  say  to  you  emphatically,  don^t  try 
to  see  much ;  be  content  with  long  journeys  and 
a  reasonable  time  in  the  few  places  you  select. 
And  I  would  divide  your  time  thus :  a  day  or  so  in 
England ;  a  week  in  Paris ;  then  on  by  night  train 
to  Bale,  and  cross  the  Gotthard  by  daylight  to 
Milan  ;  one  day  in  Milan  j  a  week  in  Venice;  and 
all  the  rest  of  your  available  holiday  in  Florence. 
Don't  on  any  account  try  to  see  Rome  and  Naples. 
Be  content  with  having  gained  a  first  impression  of 
the  pick  of  Europe, 

I  said,  too,  a  day  or  so  in  England.  Those  few 
days,  if  you  are  wise,  you  will  devote  to  the  coun- 
try —  about  which,  more  hereafter.  But  if  you 
must  see  London,  give  it  two  days,  and  spend  them 
on  the  mere  exterior  of  the  town  —  the  walk  along 
the  Embankment,  the  outside  of  the  Parliament 
Houses,  a  glimpse  of  Hyde  Park,  an  omnibus  trip 
into  the  City.  You  can  also  visit  Westminster 
Abbey,  without  and  within ;  but  I  do  not  recom- 
mend a  mere  perfunctory  walk  through  the  vast 
labyrinthine  halls  of  the  British  Museum,  the  South 
Kensington  Collections,  or  the  National  Gallery, 
Those  can  only  be  seen  to  any  advantage  if  you 
have  a  much  more  extended  time  at  your  disposal. 
Far   better    confine    your    artistic    studies    to    the 


The  Hasty  Visitor  39 

Louvre  at  Paris,  the  Brera  in  Milan,  and  the 
great  collections  in  Venice  and  Florence,  where 
you  can  learn  more  each  day  than  in  a  week  in 
London.  Waste  no  time  on  second-rate  things 
when  you  can  employ  it  usefully  on  those  of  the 
very  first  order. 

In  one  word,  what  I  advise  for  the  hasty  (but 
not  the  hurried)    traveller  is  this.       Do  not  spend 
your  six   weeks  thus:  a  day  in  Liverpool;  three 
days  in  London ;  a  night  at  Amiens ;  three  days 
in  Paris ;  a  day  in  Brussels ;  a  day  in  Antwerp  ;  a 
day  in  Cologne ;  two  days  on  the  Rhine ;  a  day  in 
Lucerne ;  three  days  in  seeing  the   Bernese  Ober- 
land  ;  a  day  at  Milan  ;  a  day  in  Verona  ;  two  days 
in  Venice ;  a  day  in  Bologna  —  and  so  on  till  you 
are  sick  of  it.     Concentrate  your  energies  on  one 
or  two  places^  and  learn  what  they  are  driving  at. 
You  will  get  lasting  good  in  this  way  out  of  even 
a  poor  six  weeks  ;  and  if  you  can  ever  manage  to 
come  again,  you  will  begin  where  you  left  off,  with 
redoubled  interest. 


CHAPTER    IV 

ENGLAND  :    THE    COUNTRY 

TT  will  be  seen  from  what  I  have  said  that  I 
-*-  regard  England  as  in  some  respects  the  least 
important  of  European  countries  for  Americans  to 
visit.  Reasonably,  I  think.  It  is  too  much  like 
home ;  has  too  little  of  novelty.  Nevertheless,  a 
few  weeks  in  England  are  valuable  in  their  way, 
as  giving  some  insight  into  the  older  world  from 
which  that  of  America  is  most  largely  derived, 
and  as  introducing  the  visitor  to  sites  and  places 
already  familiar  to  him  by  name  and  historical 
association. 

I  cannot,  however,  too  often  repeat  that  in 
England  it  is  the  country.^  not  the  towns  (save 
the  smallest),  that  deserve  close  attention.  The 
American,  coming  from  a  land  where  the  great 
towns  are  everything,  and  the  country  for  the  most 
part  a  mere  agricultural  reservoir,  naturally  thinks 
that  he  will  find  the  best  things  in  Europe  in  the 
great  cities.  "  We  have  country  enough,  and 
beautiful  country,  at  home,"  my  American  friends 


England:  The  Country  41 

often  say  to  me ;  *'  but  we  have  not  the  works  of 
art  the  great  cities  can  show  us."  That  is  true  for 
Europe  generally  ;  it  is  not  quite  so  true  for  Eng- 
land in  particular.  I  do  not  indeed  advise  the 
visitor  to  spend  much,  if  any,  of  his  time  in  ex- 
ploring Switzerland,  the  Tyrol,  the  Scotch  High- 
lands, the  Welsh  hills;  still  less  in  tramping 
through  the  Hartz,  the  Black  Forest,  the  Ardennes, 
the  Carpathians.  They  will  show  him  Httle  he 
could  not  find  in  Maine  or  Massachusetts.  If  he 
goes  to  Italy,  he  should  see  Florence  and  Venice, 
not  the  Apennines  and  the  Abruzzi ;  he  may  visit 
Perugia,  Siena,  Orvieto,  Cortona,  perched  "  like 
eagle's  nests  "  on  their  upland  crags,  but  need  not 
trouble  to  waste  his  valuable  time  over  mere  hills 
and  valleys.  The  portion  of  the  Italian  country 
that  falls  inevitably  under  his  eye  on  the  outskirts 
of  the  great  towns  or  during  the  journeys  between 
them  will  amply  suffice  to  atFord  him  a  fair  mental 
picture  of  the  vineyards,  orchards,  and  gardens  of 
Italy.  But  in  England  it  is  far  otherwise.  The 
towns  are  uninteresting,  modern,  and  industrial ;  it 
is  the  country  that  is  antique,  distinctive,  and 
beautiful. 

And  when  I  say  the  country,  I  do  not  mean  to 
use  the  word  in  the  purely  rustic  sense,  as  applied 
to  the  agricultural  land,  but  in  that  wider  acccp- 


42  The  European  Tour 

tation,  familiar  to  Englishmen,  which  calls  every- 
thing "  the  country  "  that  is  not  London.  London 
itself  is  dull,  gloomy,  foggy,  unpoetical.  (I  shall 
have  more  to  say  hereafter  in  partial  modification 
of  this  sweeping  disparagement.)  As  to  the  very 
large  trading  and  manufacturing  towns  —  the  towns 
whose  names  are  best  known  to  Americans  —  they 
are  almost  all  quite  destitute  of  aesthetic  or  histori- 
cal attractions  for  the  tourist.  There  is  nothing, 
outside  business,  to  detain  any  stranger  in  Liver- 
pool, Manchester,  Birmingham,  Leeds,  Sheffield, 
Newcastle,  Leicester,  or  Nottingham ;  still  less  in 
the  naval  and  military  towns,  like  Chatham  and 
Portsmouth,  or  in  such  grisly  seaports  as  South- 
ampton, Hull,  and  Cardiff.  What  is  really  most 
beautiful  and  noteworthy  in  England  is  to  be  found 
in  the  smaller  historical  towns^  like  Chester  and 
Warwick,  Stratford-on-Avon  and  Winchester,  and 
more  particularly  in  the  cathedral  cities,  foremost 
among  which  I  would  certainly  place  Salisbury, 
Lincoln,  Peterborough,  Ely,  York,  and  Canterbury, 
Furthermore,  it  is  not  only  these  smaller  towns 
themselves,  but  the  fields  and  farms  and  parks  and 
houses  around  them  that  are  typically  English. 
Other  countries  in  Europe  can  easily  surpass  Eng- 
land in  every  other  respect ;  France  has  nobler 
churches  ;  the  Rhineland  grander  and  more  roman- 


England:   The  Country  43 

tic  castles ;  the  cities  of  Flanders  have  quainter 
streets  and  more  exquisite  town-halls ;  Italy  has 
painting  and  sculpture  and  architecture  and  minor 
arts  in  infinitely  greater  profusion.  But  what 
England  has  of  distinctive  and  unapproachable  is 
beyond  cavil  its  country ;  its  close-cropped  lawns, 
its  immemorial  rook-haunted  elms,  its  hedges  of 
hawthorn,  its  garden-like  meadows,  its  village 
steeples  embowered  in  trees,  its  Elizabethan  manor- 
houses,  its  sweet  air  of  ancient  peace,  its  clinging 
mantle  of  ivy.  The  very  dampness  of  the  climate 
adds  a  picturesqueness  of  greenery  to  its  medieeval 
ruins ;  the  wealth  of  its  landed  families  has  pre- 
served for  its  fields  a  charming  interspcrsal  of 
august  timber  and  a  paternal  care  for  rustic  beauty 
hardly  dreamt  of  elsewhere. 

I  would  say,  then,  to  the  American  traveller, 
make  your  first  acquaintance  with  Europe  in  the 
country  in  England. 

If  you  land  at  Liverpool^  two  places  lie  easily  on 
your  way  to  London,  which  the  common  consent 
of  Americans  has  justly  picked  out  as  well  worthy 
of  your  attention.  The  first  is  Chester^  reached 
by  rail  in  about  forty  minutes  from  Liverpool. 
This  is  such  a  charming  town  that  if  you  take  my 
advice  you  will  go  on  there  direct,  without  stop- 
ping at  all  in  Liverpool  itself,  so  as  to  spend  your 


44  The  European  Tour 

first  night  in  England  at  Chester.  (You  may  take 
it  for  granted  that  at  all  places  I  mention  there  are 
first-class  hotels,  unless  I  say  to  the  contrary.) 
Chester  is  still  more  or  less  surrounded  by  its  an- 
cient walls,  and  is  remarkable  for  its  numerous 
old  half-timbered  houses,  built  in  a  style  peculiar 
to  the  place,  and  affording  room  for  what  are  called 
"  The  Rows  "  —  an  institution  quite  unknown 
elsewhere.  In  the  principal  streets,  the  ground 
floor  of  the  houses  is  occupied  by  shops ;  but  the 
first  floor  (or  second  story)  is  entirely  removed,  so 
as  to  form  an  arcade,  along  which  the  foot-passen- 
ger walks,  as  in  a  covered  gallery.  As  Chester 
has  also  a  cathedral  (though  a  small  and  unimpor- 
tant one),  it  is  a  capital  place  in  which  to  form  a 
first  impression  of  England. 

The  second  point  on  ihe  way  to  London  from 
Liverpool  is  the  group  of  towns  about  ff^arwick 
and  Leamington.  The  hotel  accommodation  is  bet- 
ter at  the  last-mentioned  ;  and  as  the  two  towns  lie 
quite  close  to  one  another  (almost  touching  on 
their  outskirts),  it  does  not  much  matter  which  of 
the  two  you  choose  as  your  stopping-place.  They 
are  about  three  hours  by  rail  from  Liverpool,  and 
may  also  be  easily  reached  from  Chester.  The 
Great  Western  route  runs  through  prettier  and 
more  characteristic  scenery  than  the  London  and 


England:  The  Country  45 

North  Western.  A  couple  of  nights  are  quite 
enough  for  Chester  ;  but  three  or  four  days  will 
not  suffice  to  exhaust  the  interest  and  beauty  of 
the  Warwick  neighbourhood. 

In  the  first  place,  there  is  IVarwick  town  itself, 
with  its  quaint  old  streets  and  its  antique  air;  and 
then,  there  is  IVanvick  Castle^  one  of  the  noblest 
mediaeval  fortresses  in  England,  almost  unique 
among  buildings  of  its  size  and  age  in  being  still 
inhabited.  The  great  pile  itself  and  the  river  at 
the  base  form  one  of  the  most  beautiful  little 
pictures  in  England ;  within,  the  combination  of 
smooth  English  sward  and  modern  occupation  (it 
is  the  home  of  Lord  Warwick)  with  the  frowning 
fierceness  of  the  Plantagenet  architecture  is  curi- 
ously attractive.  The  town  itself  is  rich  in  early 
domestic  architecture,  and  has  two  of  its  ancient 
gates,  with  oratories  above  their  archways ;  while 
the  superb  Beauchamp  Chapel  in  St.  Mary's 
Church  is  a  magnificent  monument  of  late  Gothic 
art.  But  to  my  mind  the  most  charming  thing 
near  Warwick  is  the  footpath  across  the  fields  from 
Leamington,  —  a  true  English  footpath,  leading 
through  lush  meadows  near  the  river-side,  and 
bringing  you  suddenly  in  sight  of  Guy^s  Cliff'  House^ 
an  Elizabethan  mansion  in  a  most  romantic  situa- 
tion, high  perched  on   a  crag,  and  looking  down 


46  The  European  Tour 

into  a  pool  beside  an  ancient  mill-stream.  The 
whole  combination  is  delicious.  I  once  took  two 
American  girls  for  a  walk  across  that  path,  after  a 
European  tour  of  some  duration,  the  day  before 
they  were  to  sail  for  America ;  and  as  they 
reached  Guy's  ClifF  they  turned  to  my  wife  and 
exclaimed,  "  Why,  up  till  now  we  have  never 
seen  England  !  "  Better  see  it  first  than  last,  with- 
out wasting  so  much  time  on  it. 

From  Leamington  as  a  centre,  many  other  most 
interesting  spots  may  be  visited.  It  is  a  short 
drive  to  the  ruins  of  Kenilworth  Castle^  which 
shows  such  a  building  in  its  ruined  condition  as 
Warwick  shows  it  still  repaired  and  inhabited. 
Then  Coventry  is  not  far,  with  its  glorious  churches, 
better  reached  by  the  charming  shady  road  than 
by  rail ;  and  Stratford-on-Jvon  is  a  short  day's  ex- 
cursion —  Stratford-on-Avon,  with  its  sweet  spire 
and  its  old-world  air,  only  spoiled  for  the  tourist 
by  the  perpetual  intrusion  of  that  ineffable  bore, 
William  Shakespeare.  By  which  I  mean  only 
that  Stratford,  which  is  well  worth  visiting  on  its 
own  account,  is  too  obtrusively  pervaded  by  cheap 
memorials  of  its  one  great  citizen.  If  you  go  by 
road,  instead  of  taking  the  train,  you  pass  Charlcote 
Lucy^  where  fallow  deer  still  graze,  and  get  a 
further  good  picture  of  this  true  rural  England. 


England:  The  Country  47 

You  will  understand,  of  course,  that  I  am  here 
engaged  merely  in  giving  hints,  and  that  you  will 
need  on  the  spot  a  local  guide-book.  I  may  per- 
haps undertake  one  in  time  for  this  English  tour ; 
meanwhile,  Murray's  Guides  may  be  confidently 
recommended. 

Tourists  from  Liverpool  who  have  stopped 
either  at  Leamington  or  Chester  can  break  their 
journey  Londonwards  once  more  at  Oxford,  And 
indeed,  whatever  route  you  adopt,  from  whatever 
port  of  entry,  you  must  sooner  or  later  turn  up  in 
the  University  city.  Oxford  is  the  one  thing  in 
England  which  no  American  who  values  his  soul 
should  leave  unseen  on  whatever  consideration. 
It  is  unique  in  the  world,  like  Venice.  London 
you  may  see  or  not,  as  you  please ;  but  you  must 
see  Oxford.  You  cannot  forego  it.  Indeed,  I 
have  spent  my  life  in  inducing  Americans  to  go 
to  Oxford ;  and  I  never  knew  one  who  did  not 
thank  me   for  sending  him  there. 

To  Oxford  you  must  go,  then,  sooner  or  later. 
Its  magnificent  group  of  colleges  and  of  university 
buildings  i.  unequalLvI  Ii.  ♦^he  world ;  their  beauty 
is  as  remarkable  as  their  historical  interest.  If 
you  can  afford  the  time,  three  or  four  days  should 
be  devoted  to  Oxford ;  Murray's  Guide  will  tell 
you  well  what  to  see ;  but  there  is  also  an  admir- 


48  The  European  Tour 

able  little  handbook  by  Mr.  Goldwin  Smith,  less 
formal  and  more  informing.  The  most  important 
sights  are  Magdalen,  Christ  Church,  New  College, 
and  Oriel ;  but  filial  affection  compels  me  to  add 
that  my  own  college,  Merton,  has  a  beautiful 
chapel  and  a  very  ancient  library ;  while  St.  John's, 
Jesus,  and  Wadham  also  possess  some  charming 
features.  You  should  not  omit  to  take  a  turn 
round  Christ  Church  Meadows  nor  to  row  down 
the  river  for  the  sight  of  the  boats,  with  their 
many-hued  occupants,  and  the  barges  by  the  side, 
ranged  in  rows  as  club-houses  along  the  bank  of 
the  Isis.  This  curious  picture  of  English  aristo- 
cratic youth  has  no  parallel  elsewhere  (except  at 
Cambridge).  If  possible,  you  should  visit  it  dur- 
ing the  summer  term  —  that  is  to  say  in  May  or 
June.  Before  July  the  colleges  have  "gone 
down,"  and  you  will  see  but  the  empty  shell  of 
the  great  university. 

No  visitor  to  Oxford  should  forget  to  row  down 
to  IfHey,  in  order  to  land  and  see  Iffley  church  —  a 
little  Norman  gem,  forming,  with  its  churchyard, 
old  yew,  and  river,  an  indelible  impression. 

Those  who  can  spare  the  time  should  certainly 
go  from  Oxford  to  London  by  row-boat,  at  least 

as    far  as   Maidenhead,  whence  rail   in   an  hour. 

The    Tha/nes    affords    a    delicious    picture    of   the 


England:  The  Country  49 

ancient  river-valley  civilisation  of  England ;  it  was 
long  the  main  highway  of  trade  and  pleasure,  and 
its  banks  were  fringed  by  a  constant  succession  of 
abbeys,  convents,  and  castles,  now  mostly  dis- 
mantled, ruined,  or  modernised.  Still,  the  views 
are  characteristically  English ;  the  country  is  itself 
an  artificial  product,  with  its  hedges  and  copses ; 
and  here  and  there  the  visitor  comes  upon  such 
remains  of  mediaevalism  as  the  gateway  of  Abing- 
don Abbey,  the  beautiful  monastery  church  at 
Dorchester,  the  Abbey  ruins  at  Reading,  the  ivy- 
covered  reniains  of  Medmenham  Priory,  the  stately 
tower  of  Bisham  Abbey,  converted  into  a  modern 
mansion,  with  its  adjoining  dower-house,  and  many 
other  bits  of  charming  English  architecture.  Be- 
sides, the  banks  are  everywhere  lined  with  lawns 
and  mansions  of  the  seventeenth  or  eighteenth 
century,  affording  typical  glimpses  of  the  aristo- 
cratic rural  life  of  England.  It  must  be  borne  in 
mind  that  while  in  America  wealth  congregates  in 
great  towns,  in  England  the  rich  have  only  an 
unimportant  street  house  in  London,  but  live  in 
the  country,  spending  much  time  and  thought  on 
the  beautification  of  their  estates ;  so  that  whoever 
wishes  really  to  understand  England  must  go 
where  the  English  people  have  produced  their 
chief  and    most    successful    work    of    art  —  the 

4 


50  The  European  Tour 

English  country.  .,.  Boats  can  be  hired  from  Salter 
at  Oxford. 

If  you  have  not  time  for  this  entire  trip,  then  I 
strongly  recommend  you  to  run  down  from  Lon- 
don for  the  day  to  Maidenhead — it  is  an  hour's 
journey,  and  the  best  day  to  see  the  river  life  in 
full  swing  is  Sunday.  Take  a  ticket  to  Taplow 
station;  then  walk  to  Maidenhead  Bridge,  where 
hin*  a  boat  and  row  up  stream  at  least  as  far  as 
Cookham  j  if  possible,  as  Marlow.  In  this  way 
you  will  catch  a  sight  of  the  estate  of  Cliveden, 
lately  bought  from  the  Duke  of  Westminster  by 
Mr.  W.  W.  Astor,  as  well  as  of  the  highly  charac- 
teristic village  of  Cookham ;  if  you  continue  to 
Marlow,  you  can  also  take  in  Bisham  Abbey,  with 
the  surrounding  buildings,  which  strike  a  keynote 
in  English  scenery. 

So  much  for  the  route  via  Liverpool.  If  you 
land  at  Southampton^  the  most  accessible  objects  of 
the  first  importance  on  your  route  are  Winchester 
and  Salisbury.     Both  are  well  worth  visiting. 

Winchester  lies  on  the  direct  route  to  London, 
and  has  a  cathedral,  not  quite  of  the  first  rank,  but 
exceedingly  interesting.  It  has  also  one  of  the 
great  English  public  schools,  of  mediaeval  date  — 
a  "public  school*'  in  England  meaning  one  for  the 
upper  classes,  not  a  "common  school,"  which  is 


England:  The  Country  51 

known  as  a  Board  School.  The  mcdiaDval  charity 
of  St.  Cross  is  likewise  well  worth  a  visit ;  and  the 
town  as  a  whole  is  an  admirable  specimen  of  the 
sleepy  ancient  cathedral  cities  of  England.  One 
night  will  suffice  to  see  hastily  all  there  is  to  see ; 
and  when  I  say  one  night,  I  always  mean  to  imply 
that  portions  of  the  day  before  and  after  it  must  be 
devoted  to  sight-seeing.  Murray's  Guide  contains 
a  good  account  of  this  fine  old  town,  which  under 
the  later  Saxon  kings  was  for  a  couple  of  centuries 
or  more  the  capital  of  England. 

Salisbury  lies  a  little  on  one  side  of  the  direct 
route  to  London,  but  may  be  reached  in  an  hour; 
the  way  thence  is  by  a  main  line,  with  frequent 
fast  trains;  indeed,  you  will  find  everywhere  in 
England  many  trains  a  day  at  all  convenient  hours. 
Salisbury  is  a  town  of  the  first  importance,  from 
the  point  of  view  of  the  tourist.  Its  exquisite 
cathedral^  standing  alone  in  its  smooth  green  close, 
forms  the  most  perfect  example  of  the  English 
ideal  in  this  direction.  Its  architecture,  though 
much  marred  by  modern  scraping  and  tinkering, 
(like  almost  everything  else  in  England),  is  still 
lovely  and  impressive ;  its  tone  of  feeling  is  un- 
surpassed anywhere.  Besides  the  cathedral,  the 
town  itself  is  quaint  and  old-fashioned  ;  the  domes- 
tic architecture  is  interesting ;  and  some  of  the  old 


52  The  European  Tour 

gates  which  shut  off  the  Cathedral  Close  from  the 
rest  of  the  city  are  still  standing.  Then  Stonehenge^ 
the  most  gigantic  prehistoric  monument  in  the 
world,  lies  within  reach  uf  an  easy  drive ;  and  if 
you  can  afford  two  or  three  days  here,  you  can 
spend  them  pleasantly  at  Wilton,  Amesbury,  and 
other  towns  of  the  neighbourhood.  Only  by  thus 
devoting  some  time  to  the  country  towns  can  you 
hope  to  enter  into  the  inner  heart  of  England. 

Those  who  land  at  Southampton,  as  well  as 
those  who  land  at  Liverpool,  must  not  neglect 
Oxford^  the  one  inevitable  sight  in  England.  It 
can  be  reached  from  London  direct  in  an  hour  and 
a  half;  the  railway  runs  in  part  along  the  Thames, 
and  affords  glimpses  at  times  of  Windsor  Castle. 
Third'class  carriages  on  English  railways  are  cheap 
and  comfortable :  anybody  can  travel  by  them. 

For  those  who  are  not  satisfied  with  these  hasty 
glimpses  of  English  life,  I  will  mention  in  addition 
a  few  other  places  well  worth  a  visit.  And  first, 
near  London  itself.  Canterbury  cathedral  is  one  of 
the  finest  and  certainly  the  most  historical  of  our 
old  churches ;  it  is  the  site  of  the  earliest  English 
bishopric,  and  it  still  retains  many  pious  memorials 
of  the  murdered  archbishop,  Thomas  a  Becket. 
It  may  be  hastily  seen  in  one  day  from  London, 
returning    the    same    night ;    but    I    recommend 


England:   The  Country  53 

rather  a  night  at  Canterbury.  Rochester ^  which  you 
pass  on  your  way,  has  a  tolerable  cathedral  and  a 
Norman  castle  j  they  form  a  picturesque  group  as 
seen  from  the  railway,  but  I  do  not  recommend  a 
visit ;  their  beauty  has  been  choked  by  the  engulfing 
squalor  of  the  modern  milicary  town  of  Chatham. 
As  a  rule,  each  diocese  in  England  answers  to  an 
old  English  kingdom,  or  to  one  of  its  divisions; 
Kent,  the  kingdom  of  Athelwulf,  the  first  Christian 
convert,  has  two  cathedrals,  —  Canterbury  for  the 
East  Kentings,  who  were  mainly  Teutonic,  and 
Rochester  for  the  West  Kentings,  of  mixed 
Teutonic  and  Celtic  ancestry.  I  merely  mention 
this  fact  in  passing,  as  one  of  the  little  historical 
points  which  often  cast  so  vivid  a  sidelight  upon 
European  arrangements.  Cambridge  can  also 
be  visited  with  ease  from  London.  As  a  whole, 
it  is  far  less  beautiful  and  picturesque  than  Oxford ; 
but  it  has  one  building.  King's  College  Chapel, 
more  perfect  in  its  way  than  any  one  building 
at  the  sister  university;  and  one  coup  d^ceily 
the  view  from  "  The  Backs,"  which  cannot  be 
equalled  as  a  town  prospect  anywhere  in  Britain. 
If  you  visit  Cambridge,  you  must  sleep  there  at 
least  a  couple  of  nights ;  and  then  you  can  run 
over  to  Ely  —  a  few  minutes  by  rail — and  see 
one  of  the    noblest    of  English   cathedrals,  with 


54  The  European  Tour 

an  interior  nowhere  surpassed  for  richness  and 
magnificence. 

Scotland  is  not  a  part  of  England  ;  and  to  include 
it  under  the  same  heading  is  to  bring  down  upon 
one's  devoted  head  the  lasting  wrath  of  four  millions 
of  Scotsmen.  Still,  from  the  practical  point  of 
view  of  the  American  tourist,  the  two  parts  of 
Great  Britain  may  fairly  be  run  into  one ;  and  I 
will  therefore  venture  to  add  here  (at  the  risk  of  my 
life)  a  few  hints  on  travel  in  the  northern  region. 
Those  visitors  who  land  at  Liverpool  or  who  sail 
for  Glasgow  direct  may  find  it  desirable  to  go  at 
once  to  Scotland.  If  so,  they  should  first  make 
straight  for  Edinburgh.  The  capital  of  Scotland  is 
not  unique  in  the  world,  like  Oxford  and  Venice  \ 
but  it  is  unique  in  Britain.  It  is  the  one  old  city  on 
the  island  which  possesses  both  natural  and  artificial 
beauty.  The  Castle,  St.  Giles's,  Holyrood  Palace, 
Holyrood  Abbey,  the  steep  streets  of  the  Old  Town, 
the  picturesque  front  of  Princes  Street,  all  combine 
to  give  it  a  rare  union  of  advantages.  And  while 
you  are  in  Edinburgh  you  should  not  omit  a  visit 
to  Rosslyn  Chapel^  perhaps  the  most  remarkable  and 
satisfying  piece  of  architecture  in  all  Scotland. 

Most  visitors,  however,  will  doubtless  proceed 
to  Scotland  from  London.  For  these,  it  is  possible 
to  break   the  journey  at  three  points  at  least  of 


England:  The  Country  55 

singular  interest.  All  three  lie  on  the  Great 
Northern  Railway.  Peterborough  is  only  an  hour 
from  "  town  "  — "  town  "  meaning  to  all  English- 
men London;  it  has  a  magnificent  cathedral,  which 
however  will  be  spoilt  for  the  tourist  for  some 
years  to  come  by  the  scaffolding  of  the  destroyers 
commonly  described  as  "  restorers."  Tork  is  the 
most  convenient  point  at  which  to  break  the 
journey ;  and  York  Minster  ranks  high  in  beauty 
among  English  cathedrals.  The  town  itself,  too, 
the  capital  of  Roman  Britain,  still  retains  most  of 
its  mediaeval  walls  and  gates ;  while  its  ancient 
streets  are  full  of  delightful  and  quaint  old  houses. 
It  is  well  worth  seeing.  But  if  you  mean  to  stop  at 
only  one  place  on  the  way  to  Edinburgh,  by  all  means 
let  that  place  be  Durham.  Here  alone  in  England 
do  you  get  the  great  cathedral  and  the  prince- 
bishop's  castle  perched  side  by  side  on  a  defensible 
rock,  as  in  the  Rhine  country  and  Switzerland ; 
the  ecclesiastical  chief  was  also  a  temporal  ruler, 
and  his  army  repelled  the  attacks  of  the  raiding 
Scotsmen.  The  position  of  the  vast  cathedral 
on  a  lofty  crag  overlooking  the  river  is  extremely 
picturesque ;  the  solid  Norman  grandeur  and 
gloominess  of  its  interior  live  with  one  ever 
after.  The  Galilee  or  western  porch  is  perhaps 
the  loveliest  bit  of  detail  in  England.       A  small 


56  The  European  Tour 

university  now  occupies  the  buildings  of  the 
bishop's  castle.  As  a  whole,  I  know  of  no  town 
better  adapted  to  put  the  visitor  back  at  one  glance 
into  the  England  of  the  early  Middle  Ages. 

Do  not  stop  anywhere  else  between  London  and 
Edinburgh  ;  but  read  up  the  route,  which  is  strik- 
ing in  parts,  in  any  good  guide-book.  The  Great 
Northern  line  in  my  judgment  is  far  superior  for 
the  tourist  to  the  Midland  or  the  London  and 
North  Western. 

In  Scotland^  I  do  not  recommend  the  passing 
traveller  to  do  more  than  attempt  one  of  two  main 
routes.  The  first,  a  short  one,  [^ives  him  a  glimpse 
of  the  Highlands,  and  is  known  as  the  Trossachs 
route.  It  can  be  fairly  done  in  one  long  day  from 
Edinburgh.  Go  by  rail  to  Callender  or  Aberfoyle 
(I  recommend  the  former);  thence  take  coach  to 
the  Trossachs ;  from  that  point  go  by  steamer  on 
Loch  Katrine  to  Stronachlachar ;  coach  to  Invers- 
naid  ;  steamer  on  Loch  Lomond  to  Tarbet ;  rail  to 
Glasgow  or  Edinburgh.  I  advise  rather  sleeping 
at  Glasgow  (St.  Enoch's  Hotel,  very  well  man- 
aged). This  tour  may,  if  preferred,  be  made  in 
the  opposite  direction  ;  or  if  you  like,  you  can  start 
from  Glasgow  and  return  to  Edinburgh.  The  trains, 
boats,  and  coaches  correspond  in  both  directions. 
The  trip  thus  described  consists  almost  entirely  of 


England:   The  Country  57 

mere  scenery;  but  it  is  characteristic,  and  'gives 
glimpses  of  a  few  old  castles  and  of  some  very 
marked  sides  of  Scotch  life  and  country. 

The  other  trip  is  longer,  and  requires  three  or 
four  days  at  least  to  accomplish.  It  is  generally 
known  as  the  Caledonian  Canal  route.  This  ex- 
cursion is  best  done  as  follows.  Start  from  Glas- 
gow, where  you  have  slept  on  your  return  from 
the  Trossachs  excursion  ;  the  steamboat  leaves 
unpleasantly  early ;  you  can  dodge  it  by  taking  the 
first  train  to  Greenock,  and  embarking  there, 
which  saves  you  the  comparatively  dull  run  down 
the  Clyde  from  Glasgow.  Thence  through  the 
Kyles  of  Bute  (pretty  enough  in  their  way,  but 
might  be  in  America  or  anywhere  else)  and  on  to 
the  Crinan  Canal ;  whence,  still  by  steamer,  to 
Oban^  the  capital  of  the  West  Highlands  through 
sea  lochs,  pretty  well  guarded  by  islands.  This 
day*s  journey  gives  you  a  good  glimpse  of  the 
characteristic  misty  West  Coast  scenery ;  it  is  apt 
to  be  showery.  Sleep  at  Oban,  which,  in  fine 
weather,  is  one  of  the  loveliest  spots  in  Britain. 
If  fair  next  day  —  but  that  is  a  doubtful  if —  you 
may  drive  to  see  the  i^vf  castles  of  the  neighbour- 
hood, mere  ruinous  shells,  but  most  picturesquely 
situated  (Black's  Guide  will  tell  you  all  you  want  to 
know  about  them).     Oban  may  also  be  reached  by 


58  The  European  Tour 

rail  from  Glasgow  or  Edinburgh,  not  quite  so  pleas- 
antly, but  by  a  beautiful  route  ;  those  who  dislike 
the  sea  may  diverge  from  the  itinerary  given  above 
at  Crinan,  and  take  coach  to  Loch  Awe^  an  inland 
lake,  up  which  steam,  and  rail  on  to  Oban.  But 
the  sea  lochs  and  islands  of  the  alternative  road 
are  more  thoroughly  characteristic  of  Scottish 
scenery. 

From  Oban,  steamer  to  Fort  William  or  Ban- 
avie,  where  sleep.  Do  not  trouble  to  ascend  Ben 
Nevis.  No  mountain  in  the  British  Isles  deserves 
an  ascent,  except  at  the  feet  of  leisurely  travellers. 
From  Fort  William,  steamers  will  take  you  up 
the  Caledonian  Canal  —  in  reality,  a  chain  of 
mountain  lakes  occupying  the  centre  of  a  great 
glen,  and  connected  by  canals  —  to  InvernesSy 
where  sleep.  This  Caledonian  Canal  leads  you 
through  the  wildest  scenery  in  Britain  ;  but  it  is 
not  characteristic  of  anything  save  the  fierce  High- 
land condition  of  the  seventeenth  century ;  a  few 
castles  alone  break  the  monotony  of  its  beautiful 
weirdness.  On  the  whole,  I  do  not  consider  the 
trip  here  described  a  very  instructive  one ;  it  is 
more  like  what  one  may  see  on  Lake  George  and 
Lake  Champlain,  or  in  the  Adirondack  district, 
than  distinctively  British.  Return  to  Edinburgh 
by  the  Highland  Railway  —  a  fine  line,  running 


England:  The  Country  59 

through  the  heart  of  the  grouse-moors  —  and  sleep, 
if  you  choose,  at  Fisher's  Hotel  at  Pitlochry^  whence 
you  can  explore  the  Pass  of  Killiecrankie,  the 
Falls  of  Tummel,  and  many  other  spots  of  some 
scenic  interest. 

As  a  whole,  you  will  see,  I  advise  the  six-monthly 
visitor,  if  he  attacks  Scotland  at  all,  to  sec  only 
Edinburgh  and  the  Trossachs.  But  England  is 
really  much  more  novel  and  interesting ;  it  is  the 
land  of  old  civilisation  in  Britain ;  its  cathedrals, 
castles,  and  monasteries  are  on  a  larger  scale,  and 
have  finer  architecture. 

Briefly,  my  advice  comes  to  this  :  spend  most  of 
whatever  time  you  devote  to  Britain  in  exploring 
Southern  England  ;  but  if  you  take  in  Scotland 
as  well,  see  Durham  on  the  way,  with  York  if  you 
like;  and  in  Scotland,  confine  yourself  to  Edin- 
burgh and  the  Trossachs. 

One  word  incidentally  about  the  attractions  of 
these  last.  It  is  on  a  point  of  principle.  Some 
people  go  to  see  the  Trossachs  because  they  are 
"  the  Land  of  Scott^**  and  more  particularly  of  "The 
Lady  of  the  Lake."  In  my  opinion,  it  is  a  great 
mistake  for  the  tourist  to  fritter  away  time  on  "  the 
Land  of  Scott,"  "the  Land  of  Burns,"  "Char- 
lotte Bronte's  country,"  and  other  such  purely  sen- 
timental   associations.     These    do    not    in  reality 


6o  The  European  Tour 

teach  you  anything.  The  characteristic  objects 
of  a  country  —  its  churches,  its  halls,  its  painting, 
its  sculptui'e,  its  historical  sites  and  buildings  — 
those  have  really  lasting  value  and  importance; 
mere  sentimental  associations  do  no  good  to  any- 
body. They  correspond  to  the  blade  of  grass 
plucked  from  Wordsworth's  grave,  which  might  to 
all  appearance  have  been  plucked  from  any  meadow 
anywhere.  If  a  scoffer  surreptitiously  substitutes 
for  it  a  blade  of  grass  from  Greenwood  Cemetery  or 
Boston  Common,  the  owner  himself  would  never 
know  the  difference.  But  there  is  a  real  distinction 
between  Fountains  Abbey  or  Hereford  Cathedral  or 
St.  Mark's  at  Venice,  and  Trinity  Church,  New 
York ;  they  show  you  something  the  exact  ana- 
logue of  which  you  cannot  possibly  see  elsewhere. 
Let  me  illustrate  this  misconception  of  the  true 
use  of  travel  by  the  plan  pursued  by  two  amiable 
young  London  clerks  whom  I  once  met  on  their 
way  to  Italy.  They  told  me  their  proposed  route, 
which  seemed  to  me  very  ill-selected.  I  enquired 
why  they  had  chosen  so  odd  an  itinerary.  They 
answered  that  they  were  going  to  visit  "  all  the 
towns  in  Italy  mentioned  by  Shakespeare."  Now, 
Shakespeare  was  an  Elizabethan  Englishman,  who 
probably  never  travelled  in  Italy  at  all.  In  any 
case,  he  has  no  part  in  its  history,  its  architecture, 


England:  The  Country  6i 

its  sculpture,  its  painting.  The  real  object  of  go- 
ing to  Italy  should  be  to  see  the  glorious  native 
works  at  Florence,  Rome,  and  Venice.  The  mere 
fanciful  association  of  Shakespeare's  plays  with 
Italian  towns  is  fallacious  and  misleading.  So  at 
Verona  many  misguided  tourists  go  to  deposit  their 
visiting-cards  in  a  Roman  sarcophagus,  falsely  de- 
scribed as  the  tomb  of  Juliet  —  Juliet's  very  exist- 
ence being  highly  problem.atical.  Now,  that  is 
<:learly  the  wrong  way  of  seeing  things  j  the  very 
people  who  weep  over  the  sham  tomb  where  Juliet 
never  lay  • —  the  stone  coffin,  in  all  probability,  of 
some  sleek  provincial  Roman  magistrate — most 
often  omit  seeing  the  church  of  San  Zeno,  a  mile 
from  the  town,  which  is  one  of  the  most  fascinat- 
ing examples  of  Romanesque  architecture,  and  has 
a  Madonna  on  its  altar  which  may  fairly  be  de- 
scribed as  Mantegna's  masterpiece.  Thev  miss 
the  substance  in  grasping  at  the  shadow. 

To  return  from  this  digression  —  which  never- 
theless goes  to  the  very  root  of  the  theory  of  sight- 
seeing—  if  you  wish  to  learn  more  of  England 
outside  London^  and  have  the  time  to  spare  for  it,  I 
should  add  the  following  hints  as  to  the  best  points 
to  visit :  - — 

Lincoln  is  the  most  interesting,  taken  all  round, 
among  English  cathedrals.     It  can  easily  be  com- 


62  The  European  Tour 

bined  in  a  single  short  tour  with  Peterborough,  Ely, 
York,  and  Durham.  It  stands  up  on  its  isolated 
hill,  a  church  high-placed,  dominating  with  its 
towers  a  wide  and  fertile  plain,  and  has  some  fea- 
tures which  cannot  be  seen  to  equal  perfection 
anywhere  else  in  England.  Lichfield  is  also  well 
worth  seeing,  and  can  be  taken,  if  you  choose,  on 
the  way  from  Liverpool  to  Leamington  or  Lon- 
don. Of  the  other  cathedrals,  Norwich  and  Wells 
are  the  best.  It  is  sometimes  useful  to  be  told 
what  you  may  omit :  I  add,  therefore,  that  I  do 
not  think  anybody  need  go  out  of  his  way  to  see 
Chichester,  Gloucester,  Worcester,  Bristol,  Here- 
ford, Carlisle,  or  Ripon.  Truro  is  modern.  But 
if  you  light  upon  them  by  chance,  all  are  worth 
seeing 

The  English  watering-places  are  in  some  ways 
characteristic.  Those  who  spend  some  part  of 
the  summer  in  England  may  wish  to  see  them. 
Brighton  is  merely  a  suburb  of  London — a  perfect 
London-on-Sea ;  it  has  no  picturesque  interest. 
It  is  conveniently  reached  by  rail ;  the  journey 
hardly  exceeds  an  hour.  Hastings  is  much  more 
in  the  tourist's  way ;  it  has  a  fine  old  castle,  and  a 
quaint  fisher  quarter  ;  Battle  Abbey  is  within  easy 
distance.  Eastbourne  has  access  to  two  good  cas- 
tles.     Of  the    East  Coast  watering-places,  avoid 


England:  The  Country  63 

Ramsgate,  Margate,  and  Yarmouth ;  they  are  the 
English  Coney  Island.  Cromer  is  picturesque,  and 
has  a  fine  old  church.  Scarborough^  in  Yorkshire, 
rather  remote  from  London,  is  fashionable  and 
pretty,  with  a  ruined  castle.  Whitby  is  the  most 
pleasant  and  picturesque  of  all,  well  situated  among 
the  dells  of  the  Yorkshire  moors,  with  a  ruined 
abbey,  and  a  funny  old  fisher-town  clambering 
steeply  up  the  clifF  towards  the  church  and  mon- 
astery. Prices  at  all  these  are  very  high  in  the 
season.  Lyme  Regis  in  Dorset  is  a  good  specimen 
of  the  old-fashioned  sleepy  seaside  town,  almost 
unaltered  since  the  days  of  Miss  Austen's  novels. 

Of  inland  watering-places^  Buxton  and  Matlock, 
both  in  Derbyshire^  are  pretty,  and  afford  access 
to  the  beautiful  though  quietly  hilly  scenery  of 
the  Peak.  They  are  good  centres  for  exploring 
the  country  about  Chatsworth  and  Haddon  Hall. 
The  former,  the  seat  of  the  wealthy  Duke  of 
Devonshire,  is  a  typical  example  of  the  stately 
homes  of  the  English  peerage.  Malvern,  Bath, 
Cheltenham,  and  Ilkley  have  also  points  in  their 
favour. 

Those  who  wish  to  see  rural  England  a  little 
more  fully  may  take  an  extended  tour  either  in  Dev- 
onshire or  Yorkshire.  I  do  not  say  that  either  is 
exciting  ;  but  they  are  calmly  beautiful  and  full  of  the 


64  The  European  Tour 

restful  English  feeling ;  they  will  certainly  tell  you 
far  more  about  England  and  the  English  people  than 
a  month  or  six  weeks  wasted  in  foggy  and  stifling 
London.  For  a  Yorkshire  tour  I  recommend  the 
following  route :  York  (two  nights)  with  its  Min- 
ster, town  walls,  gates,  St.  Mary's  Abbey,  etc. ; 
then  Bolton  Abbey,  where  there  is  a  nice  little  inn 
for  one  night's  stay  ;  Harrogate,  a  fashionable  in- 
land watering-place;  Ripon  for  Ripon  Minster, 
Fountains  Abbey,  and  Studley  Royal ;  by  rail  to 
Masham,  and  thence  by  carriage  or  on  foot  towards 
Richmond,  passing  on  the  way  Jervaulx  Abbey, 
Middleham  Castle,  and  Leyburn  ;  thence  the  road 
winds  across  wild  moors  to  Richmond  itself,  with 
its  finely  placed  castle ;  so  on  to  Whitby ;  next,  to 
Scarborough  ;  and  if  you  like,  finish  ofF  your  trip 
with  Beverley  Minster.  This  is  one  of  the  richest 
architectural  and  antiquarian  tours  in  England, 
affording  you  also  good  glimpses  of  the  dales  and 
rivers  as  well  as  of  the  heather-clad  moors  of 
Yorkshire,  which  are  at  their  purplest  and  best  in 
August  or  early  September. 

The  Devonshire  tour  is  less  varied  and  interest- 
ing, but  not  perhaps  less  charming.  It  exhibits 
the  quiet  and  peaceful  characteristics  of  rural  Eng- 
land in  their  utmost  development.  It  is  capital  for 
the  pedestrian.     A  good  skeleton  tour  would  be, 


England:  The  Country  65 

Exeter  (cathedral  and  castle)  ;  Teignmouth ;  Tor- 
quay i  Dartmouth  ;  Totnes  ;  Ivybridge  ;  Plymouth  ; 
Tavistock  ;  Okehampton  ;  Torrington ;  Bideford  : 
Barnstaple;  Ilfracombe;  Lynton  and  Lynmouth; 
Minehead ;  London.  This  takes  you  simply 
through  old  towns  and  villages,  with  smooth  turf,  red 
cliffs,  ancient  churches,  moss-grown  farmhouses, 
but  lacks  distinct  antiquarian  interest  save  at  a  few 
points,  for  details  of  which  I  must  refer  you  to 
Murray's  Devonshire. 

Finally,  my  last  word  is  this :  if  you  see  England 
at  all,  see  mainly  the  country.  That  is  the  sweetest 
and  best  in  England.  The  towns,  at  lea&:  the 
large  ones,  are,  as  Cobbett  said,  "  wens.'*  The 
country  is  the  most  smiling  and  garden-like  in 
Europe.  If  it  were  mere  fields,  I  would  not 
recommend  you  to  see  it.  But  it  is  an  artificial 
product,  the  one  really  admirable  artistic  outcome 
of  the  British  idiosyncrasy.  To  go  to  England 
and  omit  seeing  the  country  is  like  going  to  Italy 
and  omitting  to  see  the  pictures  and  the  churches. 


CHAPTER  V 

LONDON 

'T^O  my  mind,  most  Americans  spend  alto- 
^  gether  too  long  a  time  in  London,  I  believe 
they  usually  regret  it  afterwards.  That  is  not  un- 
natural, either  way.  As  a  rule,  visitors  come  first 
in  their  tour  to  London,  and  are  anxious  to  see 
the  sites  and  buildings  with  which  their  historical 
reading  has  made  them  familiar.  Everything  con- 
spires to  make  them  stop  there.  They  speak  the 
language  j  they  understand  the  ways ;  they  settle 
down  in  a  comfortable  (though  ruinously  expen- 
sive) hotel  or  lodging-house ;  and  they  are  loath  to 
move  till  they  have  exhausted  the  fresh  interest 
of  the  teeming  city  of  Five  Million  inhabitants. 
Afterwards  they  go  on  to  France,  Belgium,  or  Italy, 
and  are  sorry  they  did  not  assign  to  these  vastly 
more  interesting  and  amusing  countries  the  margin 
of  holiday  which  they  wasted  on  the  attractions  of 
that  gloomy  siren. 

To  those  who  want  to  make  the  most  of  their 
time,  however,  I  would  say,  on  the  contrary,  hurry 


London  67 

away  from  London  as  fast  as  possible,  and  go  on  to 
the  Continent.  If  after  you  have  seen  Paris,  Bruges, 
Cologne,  Florence,  Venice,  Rome,  Munich,  and 
Dresden,  you  still  feel  you  want  to  spend  more  time 
in  the  smoky  metropolis  of  the  world's  business,  go 
back  there  by^  all  means ;  in  any  case  go  back  for  a 
week  or  a  fortnight :  but  give  the  pick  of  Europe  a 
chance  at  any  rate,  before  you  fling  away  your 
time  with  reckless  extravagance  on  what  is  least 
important. 

Of  course  I  am  writing  from  the  point  of  view 
of  the  tourist.  There  are  those  who  desire  to  see  a 
London  season,  I  have  never  seen  one  ;  therefore  I 
can  tell  you  nothing  about  it.  There  are  those 
who  desire  to  hob-a-nob  with  dukes.  I  never  set 
eyes  on  a  duke  in  my  life,  and  somehow  I  do  not 
hanker  after  the  joy  of  beholding  one.  There  are 
those  who  wish  to  marry  their  daughters  to  Eng- 
lish peers.  If  they  are  content  with  such  usually 
undesirable  sons-in-law,  —  if  they  think  a  title  will 
console  a  woman  for  probable  neglect  and  possible 
cruelty,  —  they  may  go  their  own  way  ;  I  cannot 
aid  them  in  getting  introductions  to  a  society  which 
I  have  never  had  the  curiosity  myself  to  penetrate. 
For  people  with  these  peculiar  social  aims,  a  long 
stay  in  London  is,  I  doubt  not,  desirable.  But  my 
book  is  not  for  them,  either.     I  aim  only  at  ad  vis- 


68  The  European  Tour 

ing  the  sincere  tourist  who  wants  Europe,  as  I 
want  it  myself,  for  the  sake  of  what  it  enfolds 
of  beautiful  or  ennobling,  how  best  to  use  his  time 
to  his  soul's  advantage. 

To  him,  then,  or  to  her,  I  would  say  —  Spend 
not  more  than  a  week  at  the  outside  in  London  before 
proceeding  to  the  Continent.  In  that  week  see 
mainly  London  itself^  not  its  foreign  collections. 
And  London  itself,  apart  from  its  collections,  is 
easily  seen.  It  lies  in  a  nutshell.  It  has  few  ob- 
jects of  antiquity,  few  buildings  of  interest.  The 
few  there  are  I  will  proceed  to  note  in  what  seems 
to  me  the  best  order  for  seeing  them. 

London  Ciiy^  as  I  have  said  already, — the  old 
mediaeval  London,  —  was  almost  entirely  burnt 
down  in  the  reign  of  Charles  II.  Hence  it  now 
contains  hardly  anything  of  interest.  But  that 
older  and  truer  nucleus,  still  known  as  "The 
City,"  and  still  alone  possessed  of  its  Lord  Mayor 
and  Corporation,  forms  but  a  tiny  patch  in  the 
centre  of  the  vast  heterogeneous  agglomerate  now 
popularly  and  irregularly  described  as  London.  If 
you  start  from  the  West  End,  and  drive  through 
Kensington  past  Hyde  Park  for  miles,  you  are  still 
outside  the  utmost  verge  of  the  City.  Continue 
on  down  Piccadilly,  Regent  Street,  and  the  Strand, 
for  many  minutes  more,  and  you  have  never  even 


London  69 

approached  the  true  City  of  London.  Not  till  you 
reach  the  Griffin,  which  occupies  with  its  unspeak- 
able ugliness  the  spot  where  Temple  Bar,  one  of 
the  old  city  gates,  once  stood,  are  you  really  in 
London.  The  rest  is  just  the  outskirts.  But 
these  outskirts,  with  their  four  or  five  million  in- 
habitants (as  against  70,000  in  the  City)  have 
within  recent  years  for  the  first  time  gained 
municipal  rights  and  official  recognition  as  a  sort 
of  complex  town,  having  been  provided  with  a 
County  Council,  and  erected  into  the  administra- 
tive County  of  London.  When  people  say 
"  London  "  in  ordinary  talk,  they  mean,  as  a  rule, 
this  wider  area ;  when  they  wish  to  refer  to  the 
original  nucleus,  with  its  Lord  Mayor  and  Corpo- 
ration, they  say  "  The  City."  Thus,  the  City  in 
London  does  not  mean  at  all  what  it  means  in 
New  York  or  Chicago ;  —  that  we  call  "  town  j  " 
—  it  means  only  a  tiny  kernel  in  the  very  centre, 
yet  lying  so  far  east  of  the  fashionable  world  that 
many  ladies  who  have  lived  in  London  nearly  all 
their  lives  have  never  been  near  it.  It  is  the 
wider  London,  then,  that  I  proceed  to  deal  with  in 
the  present  chapter. 

In  that  greater  London,  the  most  interesting  and 
almost  the  <  nly  relic  of  antiquity  is  undoubtedly 
IVestminster  Abbey.     This  I  advise  you  to  see  as 


70  The  European  Tour 

soon  as  you  have  made  your  first  walks  through 
the  town,  and  learnt  to  orient  yourself.  Go 
there  more  than  once,  reading  it  carefully  up  in 
your  Baedeker's  London.  It  is  the  one  important 
mediaeval  church  in  the  modern  metropolis.  Ed- 
ward the  Confessor  built  it,  but  not  as  you  see  it. 
Henry  III.  pulled  down  his  minster,  to  do  him 
honour,  and  erected  the  existing  church  over  the 
glorious  tomb-shrine  of  his  sainted  predecessor. 
Henry  VII.  added  his  own  exquisite  chapel. 
Whatever  little  remains  of  English  history  is  to  be 
seen  at  Westminster. 

After  "  the  Abbey,"  I  should  say  see  the  town 
itself  i  by  which  I  mean  mainly,  the  West  End^ 
especially  the  quarter  about  Charing  Cross,  the 
hotels  near  which  are  by  far  the  most  central. 
The  things  to  notice  here  lie  quite  on  the  surface 
—  Trafalgar  Square,  the  Strand  and  Fleet  Street, 
the  Temple,  the  Embankment,  Regent  Street, 
Oxford  Street,  Bond  Street,  the  shopping  quarter. 
In  all  these  you  need  only  walk  about,  though  a 
few  objects,  such  as  the  Temple  Church,  deserve 
closer  inspection.  The  quarter  has  little  to  rec- 
ommend it  except  its  solid  air  of  life  and  business ; 
it  is  calmly,  unobtrusively,  and  respectably  British. 
It  does  not  aspire  to  architecture  j  but  ladies  will 
find  it  has  claims  of  its  own  on  the  score  of  drapery. 


London  71 

Of  the  parh^  the  three  which  lie  together — St. 
James's,  Green  Park,  and  Hyde  Park  —  are  worth 
walking  through.  So  is  the  parliamentary  region 
about  Westminster,  with  its  big  modern  offices 
and  its  bad-Gothic  Parliament  House.  This  dis- 
trict has  a  few  older  buildings,  such  as  the  Ban- 
queting Hall  in  Whitehall.  But  it  relies  for  the 
most  part  on  its  historical  associations.  I  do  not 
advise  you  to  waste  time  which  you  will  want  else- 
where on  being  led  by  an  attendant  over  the  House 
of  Commons  or  going  laboriously  through  any 
of  the  tedious  sights  of  Westminster  except  the 
Abbey. 

The  northern  area  you  may  entirely  neglect.  It 
contains  nothing  of  interest.  Regent's  Park  is  not 
worth  a  visit,  except  for  the  sake  of  the  Zoologi- 
cal Gardens  —  popularly,  "  the  Zoo  "  —  and  even 
those  need  not  be  seen  by  any  save  children  and 
specialists.  All  the  northern  region  is  entirely 
modern,  stucco-built,  and  repellent. 

A  trip  should,  however,  be  undertaken  into  the 
City^  just  for  the  sake  of  seeing  it.  Go  by  Fleet 
Street,  Ludgate  Hill,  and  St.  PauPs.  The  cathe- 
dral. Wren's,  need  not  detain  you  for  more  than  a 
walk  round  it,  inside  and  out :  it  is  vast,  bare, 
pretentious,  unimpressive.  The  monuments  are 
nightmares.     Then  continue  on  by  Cheapside  to 


72  The  European  Tour 

the  Bank  and  the  Royal  Exchange,  returning  by 
Holborn,  Oxford  Street,  and  Regent  Street.  The 
City  still  contains  a  few  moderately  interesting 
buildings,  the  best  of  which  are  the  Guildhall,  the 
Charterhouse,  Christ's  Hospital,  and  St.  Bartholo- 
mew's, Smithfield.  But  even  these,  though  illus- 
trative enough  of  old  London,  and  so  locally 
interesting,  are  not  to  be  compared  in  richness  or 
beauty  to  the  similar  buildings  in  France,  Belgium, 
and  Italy,  or  to  those  of  Oxford  and  the  country 
towns  of  England.  The  one  thing,  to  my  mind, 
that  makes  London  worth  seeing  is  the  mere  fact 
that  here  you  stand  in  the  largest  centre  of  popula- 
tion on  earth,  the  focus  of  universal  business  and 
finance,  the  capital  of  the  world-wide  British  em- 
pire. Architecturally  and  artistically,  London  has 
done  nothing  in  any  way  worthy  of  its  commercial 
supremacy.  It  ought  to  be  as  fine  as  fifty  Venices  : 
it  has  not  one  St.  Mark's,  one  Doges'  Palace. 

The  palaces^  indeed,  are  naught ;  but  the  club- 
houses in  Pall  Mall  betoken  wealth,  unguided  by 
taste  or  skill  to  use  it. 

I  do  not  deny  you  the  right  to  visit  once  or 
twice  at  this  stage  the  sole  really  valuable  contents 
of  London  —  its  collections ;  though  I  advise  you  to 
postpone  their  systematic  study  till  your  return 
from  the  Continent.     Still,  a  glimpse  on  your  first 


London 


73 


visit  may  not  be  wholly  undesirable ;  it  will  help 
at  least  to  show  you  there  is  something  to  see  in 
London.  Pre-eminent  among  these  collections  are 
those  of  the  British  Museum,  the  National  Gallery, 
and  the  South  Kensington  Museum. 

The  British  Museum  proper  —  that  is  to  say,  the 
department  of  Antiquities  —  is  situated  in  a  gloomy 
and    depressed-looking    building    in    the    quarter 
known  as   Bloomsbury.     (Observe,  by  the   way, 
that   London   is   a  country,  made  up  of  different 
towns,  each   with   its  own   name  and   its  separate 
physiognomy.)       On  a   first  visit  or  so,  you  will 
find  the  following  the  most  interesting  objects  in 
this  gigantic  congeries.     The  Greek  Sculpture ;  this 
is  exceedingly  rich  indeed ;  it  has  some  good  very 
early   objects   (the  Harpy  Tomb,  the  Branchida 
figures,  etc.),  and   above  all,  it  has  the  sculpture 
from  the  Parthenon  at  Athens     the  famous  Elgin 
Marbles),  the  finest  Greek  work  of  the  best  period. 
(A  comprehensive  general  Guide  to  the  Museum 
is  sold  at  the  door ;  for  those  who  want  to  pursue 
the  subject  further,  there  is  a  splendid  Handbook 
of  the  Greek  Sculpture  in  two   volumes.)     The 
Roman  Sculpture,  principally  busts  and  statues  of 
Emperors  and  their  families.    The  Egyptian  Collec- 
tion,   extremely    rich    and    valuable;    the   genera) 
catalogue  will  here  suffice  for  all  save  specialists. 


74  The  European  Tour 

The  Jssyrian  Collection^  the  richest  in  the  world  j 
at  least  a  few  hours  should  be  devoted  to  a  cursory 
examination  of  the  magnificent  reliefs.  The 
Greek  Fases  and  minor  objects  of  antiquity.  The 
Etruscan  Collection.  The  Ethnographical  Objects, 
Pre-historic  Antiquities,  Coins  and  Medals.  And 
many  others.  The  mere  enumeration  of  these  de- 
partments is  enough  to  suggest  the  immensity  of  the 
collections,  any  one  of  which  would  be  the  study 
of  a  lifetime.  The  British  Museum  is  indeed  a 
place  to  despair  in  —  or  else  to  saunter  through 
carelessly,  with  a  glance  right  and  left  at  what 
happens  to  catch  your  eye  or  take  your  fancy. 
Personally,  I  find  the  archaic  Greek  objects,  the 
Lycian  tombs,  the  colossal  sculptures  of  the  Mau- 
soleum, and  the  beautiful  set  of  Assyrian  bas-reliefs 
representing  Ashur-bani-pal  lion-hunting,  the  most 
interesting  exhibits.  But  to  the  average  American 
visitor  who  comes  to  Europe  in  search  of  the 
means  of  a  more  advanced  culture,  I  should  say 
the  Greek  and  Roman  Sculpture  is  the  most  im- 
portant object  of  special  study  in  this  museum.  I 
must  add  that  a  certain  blight  of  inexplicable  shab- 
biness  hangs  somehow  over  the  vast  collection; 
whether  it  is  the  gloom  of  Bloomsbury,  the  want 
of  space  in  the  galleries,  the  hap-hazard  mode  of 
acquisition,  or  what,  I   know   not;  but  certainly, 


London  75 

for  some  mysterious  reason,  the  objects  here  ex- 
hibited are  far  less  interesting,  relatively  to  their 
intrinsic  scientific  and  artistic  worth,  than  those  of 
the  Louvre,  the  Vatican,  the  Munich  galleries,  or 
any  other  great  European  museum.  Dingincss 
and  stinginess  are  every  where  conspicuous.  Some- 
thing must  no  doubt  be  attributed  to  the  exigencies 
of  space;  something  to  the  niggardliness  of  the 
British  people  and  the  British  government,  who, 
rich  as  they  are,  have  always  grudged  money  for 
literary,  scientific,  or  artistic  purposes. 

As  for  the  library^  with  its  vast  collection  of 
printed  books  and  manuscripts,  —  the  largest  in  the 
world,  —  that  is  for  readers  and  students  •,  the  pass- 
ing visitor  is  permitted  the  barest  glimpse  of  it  — 
and  rightly. 

The  Natural  History  Collections  of  the  British 
Museum  are  now  housed  in  a  totally  distinct  build- 
ing, some  two  miles  ofF,  at  South  Kensington. 
They  are  the  richest  in  the  world,  and  will  of 
course  be  visited  by  all  scientific  travellers ;  but 
the  general  tourist  will  doubtless  feel  satisfied  with 
a  perfunctory  walk  through  the  long  rows  of  ad- 
mirably arranged  glass  casts.  The  collection  con- 
sists of  four  departments,  —  Zoology,  Botany, 
Geology,  Mineralogy. 

Second  in   importance  to   the    British  Museum 


76  The  European  Tour 

comes  the  National  Gallery^  by  far  the  most  in- 
teresting sight  in  London  for  the  non-specialist 
tourist.  Alone  among  the  collections  of  the 
metropolis,  this  show  has  escaped  that  blight  of 
congenital  gloom  and  dulness  that  seems  to  hang 
over  everything  else  in  London.  Though  housed  in 
a  mean  and  ugly  building,  it  is  admirably  arranged 
and  very  well  lighted  j  while  the  ability  to  move 
about  the  chairs  so  as  to  sit  freely  before  whatever 
picture  you  fancy  is  a  great  advantage,  unknown 
in  almost  any  Continental  picture  gallery.  The 
National  Gallery  is  not  rich  in  works  by  the 
greatest  artists  ;  it  has  few  pictures  of  the  first 
ra  k  by  painters  of  the  first  order;  either  the 
paintings  are  good  specimens  of  second-rate  masters 
or  else  second-rate  specimens  of  great  ones.  But 
the  collection  is  illustrative,  well  displayed,  and 
admirably  adapted  to  the  wants  of  the  student  j  if 
visited  after  you  have  seen  the  Italian  and  Flemish 
collections,  it  will  greatly  help  tc  crystallise  and 
clear  your  conceptions  of  the  characteristics  of  the 
chief  schools  of  painting. 

Three  sets  of  pictures  in  the  National  Gallery 
deserve  especial  notice,  —  the  Italian,  the  Flemish, 
and  the  English.  The  Italian  Schools  are  all  rep- 
resented, though  none  of  them  by  quite  their  best 
works.     The  paintings,  in  short,  constitute  on  the 


London  77 

whole  a  scratch  collection.  But  it  is  a  very  com- 
prehensive one.  The  Tuscans  are  represented  by 
a  tolerable  rotticelli,  a  good  unfinished  Michael 
Angelo,  a  charming  Filippo  Lippi,  and  a  doubtful 
Leonardo  j  while  several  works  of  minor  artists 
have  great  merit.  The  Venetians  are  better  vouched 
for,  perhaps,  than  any  other  great  school  by  a  fine 
Titian,  a  good  Veronese,  and  many  excellent 
works  by  lesser  masters  ;  while  the  pictures  of  the 
second-rate  men,  such  as  Moroni  and  Moretto, 
Girolamo  dai  Libri  and  Cavazzola,  are  among  the 
best  things  in  the  British  collection.  The  Um- 
brians^  on  the  other  hand,  are  only  so-so;  the 
Blenheim  Madonna  by  Raphael  being  destitute 
of  most  of  his  finest  qualities,  while  there  is  but 
one  first-rate  Perugino,  a  glorious  St.  Michael  in 
celestial  armour.  The  smdXX  Ferrarese  and  Bolognese 
collection,  however,  is  rich  in  good  things,  and 
thoroughly  characteristic  of  that  least  interesting 
of  Italian  schools.  An  altar-piece  by  the  almost 
unknown  Ercole  di  Giulio  Grandi  must  rank  as 
one  of  the  finest  paintings  in  the  gallery.  The 
Paduan  school  has  a  beautiful  Mantegna,  and  a 
quite  unequalled  set  of  the  works  of  that  quaint 
and  charming  painter,  Carlo  Crivelli.  Among  the 
Lombard  examples  by  far  the  finest  is  Borgognone*s 
Madonna  with  the  two  St.  Catherines. 


78  The  European  Tour 

The  Flemish  painters  are  but  fairly  represented. 
Out  and  away  the  best  work  here  —  to  my  mind 
the  most  wholly  pleasing  picture  in  the  entire  gallery 
—  is  Gerard  David's  beautiful  portrait  of  a  kneeling 
canon  with  his  patron  saints.  The  Van  Eyck 
close  by,  though  exquisitely  f>ainted,  is  uninteresting 
as  a  picture  ;  the  best  thinr^  in  it  is  the  decorative 
adjuncts.  Several  of  the  others  are  charming  and 
delicate. 

Many  of  the  old  German  pictures  are  first-rate 
examples. 

The  Dutch  are  virell  represented  for  those  who 
like  them.  There  is  a  fine  Franz  Hals,  a  good 
Rembrandt,  and  a  fair  Vandyck  or  two.  The 
later  Flemings,  whose  affinities  lie  here,  are  well 
exhibited  by  Rubens*s  Chapeau  de  Poil,  one  of  the 
best  in  the  second  rank  of  his  portraits. 

Of  the  English  works,  naturally,  the  most  in- 
teresting are  the  Reynoldses  and  the  Gainsboroughs. 
And  then,  there  are  the  Turners. 

To  my  mind,  the  best  of  all  the  pictures  in  this 
gallery  is  the  Gerard  David  —  he  never  did  better. 
After  it  I  would  place  in  order  of  merit  the  Bor- 
gognone,  the  Mantegna,  Moroni's  Tailor,  Filippo 
Lippi's  Annunciation,  Francia'e.  Pieta,  the  Franz 
Hals,  and  the  Ercole  di  Giulio  Grandi.  It  will 
be  noticed  that  few  of  these  names  are  of  the  first 


London  79 

class.  The  gallery,  in  short,  has  some  magnificent 
works  of  second-rate  men,  but  (outside  the  English 
school)  few  transcendent  works  of  first-rate  ones. 

The  Official  Catalogue  is  good  and  instructive  ; 
there  is  also  a  capital  Handbook  (not  sold  in  the 
building)  by  Mr.  E.  T.  Cook,  which  exactly  meets 
the  wants  of  the  average  reader. 

The  third  great  collection  of  London  is  the 
South  Kensington  Museum,  It  is  a  rich,  vast, 
chaotic  gathering  of  miscellaneous  objects  of  art  — 
chiefly  the  minor  arts  —  from  all  parts  of  the 
world,  huddled  loosely  together  in  an  exquisite 
jumble  :  it  ought  only  to  be  studied  in  detail  after 
you  have  seen  Paris  and  Italy.  The  nemesis 
which  pursues  English  government  collectioiis  is 
nowhere  more  apparent,  indeed,  than  in  this  ill- 
starred  museum.  The  building  has  no  facade,  and 
looks  like  a  wood-shed.  Inside,  its  galleries  are  of 
all  heights  and  sizes,  well  or  ill  adapted,  as  chance 
or  fate  rules,  for  the  objects  they  exhibit.  Noble 
originals  are  crowded  and  jostled  by  plaster  casts 
or  modern  imitations :  you  never  know  whether 
you  are  looking  at  a  first-hand  masterpiece  or  a 
laborious  copy  till  you  consult  the  labels.  Un- 
doubtedly, the  collection  contains  some  splendid 
and  beautiful  works  of  art ;  but  the  effect  of  the 
whole  is  marred  and  spoiled  by  the  almost  entire 


8o  The  European  Tour 

absence  of  anything  like  judicious  selection  or  ar- 
rangement. In  one  word,  South  Kensington  is 
a  warehouse;  the  Louvre  and  Cluny  and  the 
Bargello  are  museums. 

Nevertheless,  this  huge  hotchpotch  of  things 
good,  bad,  and  indifferent  contains  genuine  works 
of  high  merit,  in  sufficient  numbers  to  stock  half  a 
dozen  provincial  galleries.  It  has  RaphaePs  car- 
toons—  lent  permanently  by  the  Queen;  it  has 
fine  Italian  reliefs,  Delia  Robbia  majolicas,  Limoges 
enamels,  exquisite  glass  and  metal  work,  fine 
potteries  of  all  ages,  an  endless  collection  of  various 
articles  of  minor  artistic  interest.  After  you  have 
learnt  to  understand  these  objects  elsewhere,  you 
can  spend  many  interesting  mornings  in  a  single 
room  at  South  Kensington,  examining  in  detail  the 
contents  of  the  various  cases.  I  must  add  in 
justice  that  the  descriptive  labels  are  the  best  I 
know  in  any  museum  in  the  world ;  they  render 
a  catalogue  unnecessary  for  any  save  advanced 
students. 

The  India  Museum^  which  occupies  a  separate 
building  in  the  same  district,  is  a  branch  of  the 
South  Kensington  Museum. 

Naturally,  there  are  many  other  collections  in 
London  of  great  scientific  and  artistic  importance, 
but  none  which  need  be  visited  by  the  American 


London  8 i 

tourist.  In  all  these  matters  my  advice  would  be, 
do  not  waste  time  in  seeing  third-rate  things  in 
London,  which  you  will  want  for  seeing  first-rate 
things  in  Paris,  Munich,  Venice,  and  Florence. 

A  few  words  may  be  added  as  to  things  which  you 
may  safely  omit.  The  Crystal  Palace  and  Madame 
Tussaud's  are  good  amusements  for  children,  but 
are  no  more  necessary  for  adults  than  the  Pan- 
tomime. Windsor  Castle,  half  an  hour  by  rail,  is 
ancient  in  form,  but  has  been  so  much  restored 
that  it  possesses  little  real  interest.  Hampton 
Court  is  somewhat  better ;  but  I  do  not  recommend 
you  to  go  out  of  your  way  to  see  it.  As  for  the 
theatres  and  other  casual  amusements  of  London, 
they  are  a  matter  of  taste.  Baedeker  and  the  daily 
papers  will  tell  you  all  about  them. 

Finally,  I  shall  once  more  have  justified  the 
existence  of  this  little  book  if  I  have  succeeded  in 
making  you  feel  why  the  country  in  England  is  so 
much  more  important  than  the  town,  and  why  you 
need  spend  so  little  time  in  London.  It  has  one 
really  good  and  local  thing  in  it — Westminster 
Abbey.  Even  that  you  will  understand  better  after 
you  have  seen  Orcagna's  shrine  in  Or  San  Michele 
at  Florence. 

0 


CHAPTER   VI 

FRANCE  :    PARIS 

JUST  as  distinctly  as  the  country  is  England, 
Paris  is  France, 
'  Americans,  accustomed  to  a  great  decentralised 
community,  can  hardly  understand  the  absolute 
centralisation  of  everything  French  in  Paris.  In 
the  United  States,  New  York,  Boston,  Philadelphia, 
Chicago,  St.  Louis,  New  Orleans,  and  San  Fran- 
cisco are  separate  entities;  they  do  not  take  their 
thought,  their  art,  their  laws  entire  from  one 
another ;  each  has  its  own  ideas,  its  own  judg- 
ments, its  own  peculiar  standards  of  life  and  con- 
duct. But  in  France  Paris  is  everything.  You 
are  Parisian,  or  else  you  are  provincial.  Nine 
tenths  of  all  that  is  worth  seeing  in  the  Republic 
lies  within  a  mile  of  the  He  de  la  Cite.  To  most 
Parisians  the  universe  does  not  extend  beyond 
St.  Germain. 

Hence  I  would  say  to  the  American  who  visits 
Europe,  go  to  Paris  straight  from  London,  and 
spend  most  of  the  time  you  devote  to  France 
there. 


France:   Paris  83 

Formerly  Americans  gave  more  time  to  Paris 
and  less  to  London  than  is  now  usual.  I  think 
the  older  plan  was  the  better  one;  the  change  is 
mostly  due  to  social  causes.  "Fashionable" 
Americans  who  want  to  know  marquises,  spend 
some  months  in  London ;  other  Americans  who 
have  too  much  good  sense  to  desire  such  acquaint- 
ances, follow  their  footsteps  by  pure  habit.  But 
if  you  will  take  my  advice,  you  will  go  first  to  the 
Continent ;  you  can  then  return  to  London  later, 
should  you  think  it  worth  while.  I  am  not  afraid, 
however,  that  you  will  think  it  worth  while  j  on 
the  contrary,  when  you  come  to  see  how  much 
there  is  to  learn  in  France,  Belgium,  and  (above 
all)  Italy,  you  will  thank  me  for  having  saved  you 
from  wasting  your  days  in  Piccadilly. 

As  to  a  route  from  London  to  Paris,  if  you  dis- 
like the  sea,  go  by  Dover  and  Calais,  stopping  one 
night  on  the  way  at  Am'iem^  to  see  the  Cathedral. 
There  are  good  reasons  for  seeing  it,  if  possible, 
before  you  visit  Notre-Dame  at  Paris.  Inspect  it 
at  leisure  —  there  is  nothing  else  at  Amiens  to  de- 
tain you  —  neglect  the  little  picture-gallery  —  so 
you  can  take  your  own  time  to  look  at  the  Cathe- 
dral thoroughly.  The  sculpture  of  the  exterior  is 
beautiful;  try  to  understand  it.  But  by  far  the 
finest  thing  in  the  whole  place  (if  you  do  not  allow 


84  The  European  Tour 

yourself  to  be  talked  over  by  Mr.  Ruskin)  is  the 
set  ot  .  oured  stone  reliefs  at  the  back  of  the  choir, 
in  what  is  called  the  ambulatory.  They  relate  the 
history  of  the  two  chief  saints  of  the  district. 
Those  on  the  South  Side  tell  the  story  of  the  local 
[bishop,  St.  Firmin,  the  apostle  of  the  Ambiani,  the 
.Romanised  Celtic  tribe  from  whom  Amiens  takes 
its  name  i  and  they  deserve  the  closest  attention. 
I  mention  them  here,  not  because  of  any  intrinsic 
importance,  but  because  they  are  the  first  such 
works  which  the  tourist  will  see,  in  all  probability, 
and  they  should  therefore  be  carefully  examined  as 
specimens  of  the  sort  of  interest  which  is  rife  on 
the  Continent.  Here  the  Reformation  has  not 
swept  away  all  continuity  with  the  pastj  and 
in  these  naive  scenes,  sculptured  from  1489  to 
^530*  we  get  a  charming  glimpse  of  the  manner  in 
which  the  fifteenth  century  envisaged  to  itself  the 
history  of  the  early  church  in  the  days  of  the  per- 
secutions. Not  so  much  on  account  of  their 
artistic  merit,  therefore  (which,  however,  is  great), 
as  because  they  will  form  a  good  introduction  to 
my  treatment  of  the  Continent  generally,  I  will 
dwell  for  a  while  on  these  interesting  sculptures. 

At  a  first  glance  you  can  see  for  yourself  that 
they  are  quaint  and  beautiful.  In  composition  and 
treatment  they  resemble  the  finest  Flemish  paint- 


France:   Paris  85 

ings  of  their  time ;  and  indeed,  by  whomever  they 
were  produced,  they  are  essentially  Flemish  in 
spirit.  Nor  need  I  point  out  to  you  the  delicious 
and  almost  childish  simplicity  of  the  style;  the 
charmingly  unconscious  spectators  who  look  out 
of  the  windows  at  the  saint's  martyrdom  ;  the  noble 
ladies  who  disrobe  completely  to  enter  the  sacred 
font  of  baptism.  But  what  I  wish  to  impress  upon 
you  here  is  the  point  that  you  must  examine  these 
scenes  in  detail^  and  try  to  remember  them,  for 
comparison  with  other  similar  scenes  elsewhere. 
Don't  walk  past  them  with  a  lordly  glance;  spell 
them  out  and  understand  them.  You  will  find  as 
you  go  on  that  such  representations  are  always 
more  or  less  conventionalised,  and  that  only  by 
means  of  comparison  can  you  rightly  grasp  their 
full  meaning.  I  would  also  urge  upon  you  to  buy 
photographs  of  such  works,  whenever  they  interest 
you  —  not  views  of  Amiens  Cathedral  as  a  whole, 
but  separate  photographs  of  each  such  incident  in 
the  life  of  St.  Firmin.  You  can  then  employ  them 
for  collation  with  other  like  works  elsewhere. 

Still  more  markedly  is  this  the  case  with  the  series 
of  reliefs  on  the  North  Side  of  the  ambulatory, 
representing  the  Life  of  St.  John  Baptist.  Such 
series  are  common  elsewhere,  especially  in  baptis- 
teries, of  which,  of  course,  the  Baptist  is  patron. 


86  The  European  Tour 

You  will  find,  for  example,  several  similar  sets  at 
Florence,  —  one  on  the  bronze  door  of  the  Bap- 
tistery by  Andrea  Pisano ;  one  on  the  silver  altar 
removed  from  the  same  building  to  the  Cathedral 
Museum ;  and  one  or  two  in  other  situations. 
Hence  you  should  examine  each  episode  sepa- 
rately, and  note  the  treatment ;  you  will  find  after- 
wards that  each  scene  recurs,  that  the  incidents  are 
stereotyped,  and  that  the  figures  introduced,  nay, 
the  very  attitudes  and  expressions,  are  all  of  them 
conventional.  A  similar  series,  representing  the 
Life  of  Christ,  earlier  in  date,  but  not  quite  so 
beautiful,  you  will  afterwards  visit  in  the  ambula- 
tory of  Notre-Dame  at  Paris;  and  you  will  find 
it  interesting  to  compare  the  one  scene  which 
necessarily  occurs  in  both  lives  alike,  that  of  the 
Baptism  of  Christ  in  Jordan.  I  have  written  a 
short  account  of  the  history  and  evolution  of  this 
scene  in  art  in  a  paper  contributed  to  the  English 
Illustrated  Magazine,  under  the  title  of  "  The 
Painter's  Jordan." 

I  introduce  this  digression  merely  in  order  to 
suggest  to  you  in  what  spirit  you  must  approach 
Continental  cathedrals  and  churches.  Begin  by 
understanding  the  local  saints  and  their  histories ; 
and  then  remember  that  every  church  is  closely 
connected  with  its  founder  and  patron.     As  a  pre- 


France :   Paris  87 

liminary  exercise  in  this  direction,  I  would  advise 
you  to  read  over,  in  my  Historical  Guide  to 
Paris,  fi?  .  the  introductory  chapter,  with  its  no- 
tice of  St.  Denis,  and  then  the  section  devoted  to 
the  Basilica  of  St.  Denis  near  the  end  of  the  vol- 
ume. This  will  serve  to  show  you  the  close  con- 
nection which  habitually  exists  between  patron  and 
fabric  in  most  historical  Catholic  countries.  Should 
the  subject  interest  you,  buy  Mrs.  Jameson's  Sacred 
and  Legendary  Art  and  Legends  of  the  Madonna^  and 
carry  them  everywhere  with  you. 

So  much  for  the  route  via  Dover  and  Calais. 
But  if  you  don't  mind  the  sea,  and  can  endure  a 
four  hours'  journey  in  place  of  one  of  an  hour  and 
a  half,  I  would  recommend  you  strongly  to  go  by 
Newhaven  and  Dieppe^  which  is  a  much  more  pic- 
turesque and  representative  route.  The  Calais  way 
runs  through  the  dull  flats  of  Picardy ;  the  line 
from  Dieppe  runs  through  the  hills  and  dales  and 
apple-orchards  of  Normandy^  and  by  the  winding 
valley  of  the  island-dotted  Seine,  so  that  you 
approach  Paris  by  its  old  natural  river-way.  This 
route  also  allows  you  to  break  the  journey  at  Rouen^ 
which  is  far  more  interesting  in  its  way  than  even 
Amiens.  To  begin  with,  the  town  is  more  histor- 
ical. It  has  a  fine  Cathedral,  and  a  still  finer 
monastic  church,  St.  Ouen.    It  has,  in  addition,  sev- 


88  The  European  Tour 

eral  ancient  municipal  or  judicial  buildings,  which 
almost  rival  in  magnificence  those  of  Belgium. 
And  it  is  a  delightful  town  in  which  to  make  your 
first  acquaintance  with  provincial  France  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  In  any  case,  sooner  or  later,  aim  at 
seeing  Rouen. 

As  for  Paris  itself,  I  have  given  already,  in  my 
Historical  Guide,  a  full  account  of  the  city  and 
what  to  see  in  it.  I  will  only  add  here  a  few 
general  hints  of  the  sort  which  may  be  useful  in 
forming  plans  for  your  settlement.  Take  up  your 
quarters  somewhere  near  the  Avenue  de  I'Opera  j 
there  you  will  be  within  walking  distance  of  most 
things  worth  seeing.  Walk  about  the  modern 
town  as  much  as  you  like ;  but  remember  that  the 
sights  which  count  for  culture  are  all  in  the  Old 
Paris  within  the  Great  Boulevards.  First  and  fore- 
most in  importance  comes  undoubtedly  the  Louvre^ 
which  is  at  once  the  noblest  of  French  historical 
palaces,  and  the  great  Museum  of  the  collections  of 
Paris.  It  contains  everything  —  paintings  of  all 
schools  ;  sculpture,  antique,  mediaeval.  Renaissance, 
and  modern  ;  vases  and  pottery  of  all  ages  \  objects 
of  decorative  art ;  Egyptian,  Assyrian,  Oriental, 
and  other  Antiquities.  To  know  the  Louvre  is 
the  work  of  a  lifetime ;  to  walk  through  it  alone  is 
a  considerable  undertaking.     Devote  most  of  your 


France:   Paris  89 

time,  therefore,  to  the  Louvre.  But  I  would  par- 
ticularly advise  you  to  pay  special  attention  to  the 
French  mediaeval  and  Renaissance  sculpture. 

Still,  only  a  small  part  of  the  contents  of  the 
Louvre  are  either  Parisian  or  French  in  origin. 
To  see  Paris  itself^  you  must  look  mainly  else- 
where. Second  in  importance,  again,  I  would 
therefore  place  the  great  collections  of  Cluny^  which, 
though  in  part  Italian  and  Flemish,  are  much  more 
largely  of  native  provenance.  Cluny  is  the  museum 
of  the  art  of  the  Middle  Ages;  devote  as  much 
time  as  possible  to  this  fascinating  building,  study- 
ing its  contents  in  the  spirit  I  have  indicated  in  the 
case  of  the  reliefs  at  Amiens.  (See  my  Histor- 
ical Guide  to  Paris.) 

Three  early  churches  are  of  the  first  rank  of  im- 
portance, and  are  still  more  distinctively  Parisian  in 
nature,  —  Notre-Dame^  the  Sainte  Chapelle^  and  the 
Basilica  of  St.  Denis.  Two  Renaissance  churches 
also  deserve  close  attention,  —  St.  Eustache  and 
St.  Etienne-du-Mont ;  while  one  much  earlier  build- 
ing, St.  Germain-des-Pres,  is  hardly  less  im- 
portant. For  other  sights  and  detailed  information, 
I  must  refer  you  once  more  to  my  Paris 
Guide. 

I  do  not  mean,  however,  that  you  ought  to  visit 
the  objects  here  enumerated  in  the  order  in  which 


go  The  European  Tour 

I  have  mentioned  them.  You  will  find  in  the 
Guide  quite  a  different  scheme  drawn  up  for  your 
instruction.  In  order  to  understand  Paris,  the 
best  way  is  to  begin  with  what  is  distinctively 
Parisian^  and  what  is  locally  oldest,  —  the  He  de  la 
Cite,  which  was  the  primitive  town,  and  the  Royal 
Palace  it  enclosed  ;  together  with  its  chapel,  the 
Sainte  Chapelle  of  St.  Louis.  After  that,  proceed 
to  Notre-Dame,  the  old  Cathedral,  also  situated 
on  the  original  island.  Take  next  the  earliest  over- 
flow on  the  Left  Bank,  where  Paris  spread  to  the 
mainland,  with  the  Museum  of  Cluny,  once  the 
mansion  of  the  abbots  of  that  famous  monastery, 
and  the  shrine  of  Ste.  Genevieve,  the  patron  saint 
of  Paris.  Later,  proceed  to  examine  the  North 
or  Right  Bank,  with  its  Renaissance  palace,  the 
Louvre,  and  its  immense  collections  of  Italian  or 
Oriental  works ;  as  well  as  its  chapel  of  St. 
Germain-l'Auxerrois.  In  this  way,  I  believe,  you 
will  get  from  the  beginning  a  far  clearer  and  more 
historical  idea  of  Paris  than  by  any  amount  of  hap- 
hazard and  promiscuous  sight-seeing. 

In  this  task,  I  venture  to  believe,  you  will  find 
my  Guide  suggests  a  practicable  plan  which  will 
unfold  to  you  the  growth  and  development  both  of 
the  City  itself  and  of  its  arts  and  buildings.  My 
object    throughout    is    to   display    the    connection 


France  :   Paris  9 1 

between  architecture,   painting,  and    sculpture  on 
the  one  hand,  and   history  on  the  other. 

A  single  example  of  the  method  pursued  in   these 
Historical  Guides   will    show   you  better  what 
they    are    driving    at    than   any  amount  of  vague 
generalisation.     Let  us  suppose  you  are  in  Paris, 
and  you  want  to  see  the  Sainte  Chapelle.     That  is 
one  of  the  loveliest  and  most  perfect  things  in  the 
city  —  one  of  the  half-dozen  sights  which  nobody 
should  miss,  though  he  miss  the  Morgue  and  the 
Moulin  Rouge,  the  races  at  Longchamps  and  the 
cares  chantants  of  the   Champs    £lysees.     \{  you 
look  in  the  ordinary  guide-books,  you  will  find  that 
"  the  Sainte  Chapelle  was  erected  by  Louis   IX.," 
and  that "  its  architect  was  Pierre  de  Montereau." 
Those  two  names,  however,  you  will  admit,  can 
assist  you  but  little   towards  a  comprehension  of 
the  building  and  its   meaning.     What  you  really 
desire  to  know  is  this, — the  circumstances  under 
which   that   glorious   pile  was  built,  and  the  way 
those  circumstances  have  affected  its  architecture. 
Now,  the  Sainte  Chapelle  was  the  domestic  chapel 
of  the    old    palace    of  the    French    kings^    situated 
within  its    walls,  and    directly  approached  from  it 
by  a  covered  gallery.     The  palace  has  gone,  but 
the  chapel  remains  to  us.     Again,  it  was  built  by 
Louis   IX.,  the  Crusader,  —  that  deeply  religious 


92  The  European  Tour 

and  mystic  king  who  gave  up  his  whole  life  to  the 
service  of  the  Church,  and  was  afterwards  canon- 
ised by  Rome  as  Saint  Louis.  During  the  age  of 
the  Crusades,  the  astute  Greeks  and  Syrians  found 
the  simple  and  pious  knights  of  western  Europe 
most  credulous  and  gullible  in  the  matter  of  relics  j 
they  did  a  splendid  and  paying  business  with  the 
Franks  in  the  matter  of  fragments  of  the  True 
Cross  and  similar  holy  objects.  Amongst  others 
of  his  sort,  St.  Louis  purchased  from  an  orientalised 
Western,  Baldwin,  Emperor  of  Constantinople, 
the  Crown  of  Thorns^  which  had  been  miraculously 
preserved  by  Joseph  of  Arimathea.  He  also 
bought  a  portion  of  the  Holy  Cross.  To  receive 
these  sacred  objects,  for  which  he  had  paid  an 
enormous  sum,  he  determined  to  erect  a  suitable 
shrine  within  his  palace  precincts  —  the  Sainte 
Chapelle,  which  still  remains  almost  as  perfect  as 
he  left  it,  though  greatly  modernised  by  restorers 
in  the  present  century. 

It  is  as  the  Shrine  of  the  Crown  of  Thorns^  there- 
fore, that  we  have  mainly  to  regard  this  exquisite 
little  gem  of  the  best  and  purest  age  of  Gothic 
architecture.  And  after  that,  we  have  to  consider 
it  most  as  the  Chapel  of  the  Royal  Palace  and  the 
chief  existing  memorial  of  the  piety  of  St.  Louis, 
Over  the  principal  doorway,  accordingly,  sculptured 


France:   Paris  93 

angels  display  the  Crown  of  Thorns  and  the 
True  Cross,  whose  meaning  and  relevancy  in  that 
particular  place  thus  become  quite  evident.  Round 
the  pinnacles  on  the  roof,  again,  the  Crown  of 
Thorns  is  hung  like  a  chaplet.  Behind  the  high 
altar  stands  the  richly  gilt  tabernacle  where  the  holy 
relic  itself  was  preserved ;  and  this  shrine  is  sur- 
mounted by  a  sort  of  platform  or  gallery  of  exquisite 
workmanship,  from  which  the  kings  of  France 
used  to  display  it  once  a  year  to  their  people  as 
represented  by  the  congregation  assembled  in  the 
chapel.  Angels  on  its  face  hold  a  sculptured 
Crown  of  Thorns  in  perpetual  witness  of  this 
beautiful  ceremony.  Everything  else  about  the 
building  breathes  the  ecstatic  piety  of  the  saintly 
king;  ancient  mosaics  of  martyrs,  each  wearing, 
as  it  were,  his  own  crown  of  thorns,  surround  the 
building.  One  of  the  stained-glass  windows  re- 
lates in  full  the  story  of  the  bringing  of  the  crown 
from  Constantinople,  and  its  enthusiastic  reception 
by  king  and  people  in  Paris.  But  the  chapel  is 
royal  too  ;  the  fleur-de-lis  of  France  tops  every 
pinnacle  and  covers  every  pillar;  while  closely 
connected  with  it  are  the  Three  Castles  of  Castile, 
the  arms  of  Louis's  mother,  Blanche  of  Castile,  to 
whom  he  was  ever  the  most  devoted  and  loyal  of 
sons.     Thus  the  lofty  church  as  it  stands  forms 


94  The  European  Tour 

for  us  not  only  a  monument  of  splendid  Gothic 
architecture,  but  a  perfect  picture  of  the  saintly 
royalty  of  the  thirteenth  century. 

Now,  it  is  facts  like  those,  the  inner  meaning  of 
buildings,  of  pictures,  of  works  of  sculpture,  that 
my  guide-books  are  primarily  intended  to  reveal  to 
you.  They  are  purely  explanatory.  I  take  the 
visitor  round,  showing  him  such  remains,  and  at 
every  step  pointing  out  their  meaning.  If  you 
want  to  know  these  things,  then  by  all  means,  use 
them.  If  you  don't  want  to  know  these  things, 
waste  no  money  in  buying  what  to  you  will  be 
useless ;  get  a  valet-de~place  to  take  you  round  to 
the  Eiffel  Tower,  the  principal  music-halls,  the 
cafes  on  the  Boulevards,  the  wax-work  shows,  and 
such  other  sights  as  may  strike  your  fancy. 

Or,  again,  let  us  take  an  example  from  a  picture. 
You  are  at  the  Louvre,  we  will  suppose,  and  you 
have  come  to  a  fine  work  in  the  Salle  des  Primitifs 
which  arrests  your  attention.  You  look  it  up  in 
one  of  the  ordinary  guide-books,  and  you  will 
probably  find  something  like  this  —  "251,  Man- 
tegna.  Madonna  della  Vittoria ;  a  very  beautiful 
work,  of  Mantegna's  later  period."  Well,  you 
can  see  for  yourself  it  is  a  beautiful  work;  but 
what  does  it  mean  ?  what  are  the  figures  it  con- 
tains there  for  ?     That  is  just  what  I  try  to  tell 


France  :   Paris  95 

you.     I  explain  how  Charles  VIII.  of  France  in- 
vaded  Italy,  and  how  he  was  repelled  by  a  league 
of  Italian  cities,  under  the  guidance  of  Gonzaga, 
Marquis  of  Mantua,  who  commissioned  this  pic- 
ture, which  contains  his  portrait.     Gonzaga   met 
the  French  at  the  passage  of  the  river  Taro,  and 
vowed  an  altar-piece  to  the  Blessed  Virgin  if  he 
gained  the  victory.      This  is  that  altar-piece.     He 
gave    the    commission    to    A7idrea    Mantegna^  his 
court  painter,  whose  place  in  Italian  art  I  try  to 
make    you    realise :     and    Andrea,    following,    no 
doubt,    his    patron's    commands,    painted    in    the 
centre  the  Madonna  and  Child^  —  Our  Lady  ex- 
tending   her   protecting    hand    to    Gonzaga,    who 
kneels  in  the  foreground  in  full  armour,  as  if  offer- 
ing up  thanks  just  after  the  battle.     That  is  why 
it  is  called  Our  Lady  of  Victory. 

But  you  also  see  in  the  picture  several  other 
saints  on  either  side.  Who  are  they,  and  why  are 
they  included  ?  Again  I  try  to  show  the  reason. 
To  the  right  is  St.  Elizabeth  (mother  of  the  Bap- 
tist), the  patron  saint  of  Gonzaga's  wife,  who  is 
thus  symbolically  associated  with  her  husband  in 
thanksgiving  for  the  victory.  Behind  and  to  the 
left  are  the  patron  saints  of  Mantua^  who  also  de- 
serve to  be  gratefully  remembered  ;  St.  Michael,  the 
Archangel,  the  warrior  of  God,  captain   of  the 


96  The  European  Tour 

army  of  the  L  ord  of  Hosts,  who  doubtless  fought 
on  the  side  of  the  Italians,  —  a  glorious  figure,  in 
resplendent  celestial  mail :  St.  Andrew,  who  was 
not  only  a  patron  of  M.ntua,  but  also  Andrea's 
own  personal  name-saint :  St.  Longinus,  the  con- 
verted centurion  who  pierced  the  side  of  the 
Saviour,  and  was  afterwards  baptised,  and  whose 
bones  are  preserved  in  a  chapel  of  St.  Andrew's 
church  in  Mantua :  and  finally  St.  George  Quch 
a  lovely  St.  George  !)  the  human  warrior  saint,  as 
St.  Michael  is  the  angelic  one,  who  stands  here 
especially  as  representing  the  territory  of  Venice, 
of  which  he  was  pairon,  in  order  to  suggest  the 
idea  that  the  patriotic  Venetians  were  especially 
active  in  organising  the  resistance  to  the  French 
invasion.  This  is  only  a  small  part,  it  is  true,  of 
what  I  have  to  tell  you  about  this  lovely  picture ; 
but  further  details,  read  in  the  absence  of  the  pic- 
ture itself,  would  be  merely  wearisome.  I  merely 
give  you  this  as  a  single  example  of  the  method  I 
pursue,  and  I  say  again,  if  you  care  for  this  explan- 
atory treatment —  if  you  want  to  understand  how 
these  churches  were  built  and  these  pictures 
painted,  not  simply  to  gaze  at  them  in  ignorant 
wonder,  —  then  take  my  guide-books  with  you. 
If  you  don't  care,  be  content  with  the  ordinary 
itineraries. 


France :   Paris  97 

To  see  Paris  properly  in  the  way  here  set  down 
will  take  you  a  month  at  least ;  and  the  longer  you 
stay,  the  better  you  will  understand  it.  But  as  a 
counsel  of  perfection,  I  would  say,  stop  a  month 
at  first,  devoting  most  of  your  time  to  the  more 
Parisian  objects  (Notre-Damc,  St.  Denis,  Cluny, 
the  Sainte  Chapelle),  with  only  a  first  hasty  view 
of  the  Italian  pictures  and  sculptures;  and  then 
return  again  for  a  fortnight  to  re-examine  these 
last  after  you  have  seen  Italy. 

Furthermore,  let  me  impress  upon  you  the  point 
that  you  ought  to  see  Cluny  before  you  see  the 
Louvre  -,  and  that  you  should  study  closely  the  de- 
velopment of  the  conventional  scenes  of  mediaeval 
art  as  there  exhibited  before  you  proceed  to  exam- 
ine their  alteration  and  expansion  by  Renaissance 
artists  as  exhibited  in  the  great  picture-gallery. 
The  Renaissance  builds  entirely  upon  mediaevalism, 
while  destroying  and  reconstituting  it  \  it  takes 
conventionalised  mediaeval  scenes,  and  proceeds  to 
render  them  with  more  or  less  infiltration  of  clas- 
sical spirit.  You  may  not  see  the  importance  of 
this  at  first;  but  after  you  have  watched  the 
growth  and  development  of  a  few  single  scenes, 
you  will  realise  that  only  by  constant  comparison 
can  you  understand  art  at  its  growing  periods. 
Above  all,  recollect  that  symbolism  is  the  language 

7 


98  The  European  Tour 

of  early  art  i  you  cannot  read  the  book  unless  you 
take  the  trouble  to  learn  the  language.  My 
Guides  are  intended  as  an  easy  introduction  to  such 
knowledge.  They  take  you  in  front  of  each  picture 
or  statue,  and  tell  you  just  as  much  as  is  then  and 
there  necessary  to  make  you  comprehend  and  enjoy 
its  meaning.  If  you  visit  Paris  in  this  spirit,  you 
will  learn  from  it  most  of  what  it  has  to  teach  you. 

To  sum  up,  spend  most  of  your  time  devoted 
to  France  in  Paris,  and  see  it  thoroughly  by  the 
historical  method. 

Of  course,  if  you  are  not  going  on  to  Italy,  then 
you  must  see  Paris  in  quite  a  different  manner. 
In  that  case  you  will  want  to  make  the  best 
use  you  can  of  the  Louvre  collections ;  and  the 
Italian  pictures  and  classical  sculpture  will  naturally 
rise  to  the  first  rank  of  importance.  If  you  are 
only  going  to  study  Raphael  and  Leonardo  and 
Mantegna  here,  then  study  them  thoroughly,  by  all 
means.  But  in  any  case  follow  the  course  set 
down  in  my  Guide  (which  is  mainly  written  for 
people  who  expect  to  see  Paris  alone),  and  you  will 
thus  get  the  greatest  good  out  of  the  limited 
number  of  Italian  paintings  and  classical  statues 
or  reliefs  here  gathered  for  your  observaf'Oii. 

In  either  instance  you  will  find  the  Louvre  is  the 
kernel  of  Paris, 


CHAPTER  VII 

FRANCE  :    OUTSIDE    PARIS 

A  FTER  Paris,  the  visitor  may  desire  to  see 
•*  "^  some  other  parts  of  Frame.  What  these 
parts  should  be  must  largely  depend  upon  the  time 
of  year  at  which  he  pays  his  visit,  the  plans  he  has 
formed  for  himself,  and  his  ulterior  objects. 

For  example,  if  you  are  in  France  in  the 
summer,  you  may  choose  the  delightful  tour  of  the 
Loire  townsy  which  will  introduce  you  to  the  most 
interesting  group  of  provincial  French  cities ;  in 
such  a  trip  you  can  easily  include  Orleans,  Blois, 
Tours,  Saumur,  Angers,  and  Chartres.  If  again 
you  are  going  straight  to  Switzerland,  you  will  find 
Dijon  a  capital  stopping-place ;  and  you  will  dis- 
cover there  (what  you  may  already  have  found 
out  at  Cluny  and  in  the  Louvre)  that  Burgundian 
art  was  something  entirely  distinct  from  French 
art  during  the  Middle  Ages.  Dijon,  in  fact,  has 
much  more  in  common  with  such  Flemish  towns 
as  Bruges,  Ghent,  and  Antwerp  than  with  those  of 
France  in  the  ordinary  acceptation.  If  you  are 
bound  for  Spain,  you  may  visit  on  the  way  Orleans 


100  The  European  Tour 

and  Poitiers^  or  may  diverge  a  little  into  the  Pyr- 
enees (Eaux  Bonnes,  Eaux  Chaudes,  Cauterets), 
especially  in  summer.  Pan  is  the  capital  of  the 
French  Pyrenean  district,  and  having  been  also  the 
capital  of  the  old  region  of  Beam,  and  the  birth- 
place of  Henri  IV.,  the  first  of  the  Bourbon  kings, 
it  has  many  antiquarian  attractions,  in  addition  to 
the  advantages  it  derives  from  its  beautiful  sit- 
uation, its  unrivalled  views,  and  its  surrounding 
scenery. 

Of  Normandy  and  Brittany  I  will  not  speak  in 
detail  here.  Those  countries,  it  is  true,  are  full  of 
objects  of  secondary  interest,  —  cathedrals,  abbeys, 
churches,  castles,  many  of  which  are  closely  con- 
nected with  the  early  history  of  England,  and 
therefore  also  of  the  American  people.  But  they 
are  not  for  the  hasty  six-months  visitor,  whose 
convenience  I  am  particularly  considering  in  this 
volume.  Americans  who  are  spending  several  years 
in  Europe,  or  who  are  paying  their  fourth  or  fifth 
annual  visit,  may  desire  to  see  them ;  but  they  are 
not  so  well  worth  attention  from  the  traveller 
pressed  for  time  as  most  of  the  other  places  here 
described  in  brief.  Those  who  have  reached  the 
point  where  a  trip  in  Normandy  or  Brittany  can  be 
undertaken  with  advantage  will  find  full  particulars 
of  both  provinces  in  Murray  and  Baedeker. 


France:   Outside  Paris  loi 

Americans  who  desire  to  spend  the  winter  in 
Europe,  on  the  other  hand,  will  probably  wish  tc 
light  upon  some  warm  spot  where  they  can  pass 
the  two  or  three  coldest  months  in  comparative 
comfort.  For  this  purpose  some  of  the  winter 
stations  in  the  South  of  France  are  extremely  suit- 
able. If  the  whole  summer  has  been  consumed  in 
seeing  England,  France,  Belgium,  and  Holland,  the 
Rhine  country,  and  Switzerland,  it  may  be  con- 
venient, before  visiting  Florence,  Rome,  or  Venice, 
to  retire  for  December,  January,  and  February 
(when  sight-seeing  is  uncomfortable,  even  in  Italy) 
to  Pau  or  the  Riviera.  Each  of  these  has  its  own 
advantages. 

Pau  is  not  particularly  warm  in  winter,  but  it  is 
sheltered  and  windless,  and  it  has  undoubted  anti- 
quarian attractiveness.  The  visitor  may  arrive 
there  about  the  beginning  of  December,  and  may 
leave  for  Italy  before  the  first  of  March,  by  which 


date  Rome  and  Florence  are  becoming  agreeablei 
places  of  residence. 

The  Riviera  is  the  name  usually  given  in  English 
to  the  narrow  strip  of  coast  along  the  Medi- 
terranean between  Marseilles  and  Genoa.  As  I 
have  spent  some  ten  or  twelve  winters  at  its  vari- 
ous stations,  I  am  in  a  position  to  advise  the  visitor 
where   to  go,  according  to  his  requirements.     It 


I02  The  European  Tour 

must  be  premised  that  this  strip  of  coast  lies 
between  the  High  Alps  to  the  north  and  the  sea 
to  the  south,  and  is  remarkable  for  its  luxuriant 
semi-tropical  vegetation.  Nevertheless,  you  must 
not  suppose  that  even  here  you  can  escape  the  chill 
of  European  January.  You  go  to  a  winter.  Snow 
often  fails  and  lies  on  the  ground  for  three  days 
together  ;  and  the  cold  dry  wind  known  as  the 
mistral  blows  very  frequently.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  sky  is  generally  clear  and  sunny ;  colds  are  in- 
frequent ;  exercise  can  be  taken  almost  daily  in  the 
open  air;  and  it  is  possible  to  sit  out  even  in 
January  and  February  on  sheltered  garden  seats 
or  among  the  rocks  on  the  hillsides.  The  coast 
is  essentially  not  French,  but  Provencal,  from 
Marseilles  to  Cannes  ;  not  Italian,  but  Ligurian, 
from  Nice  to  Genoa. 

The  best  way  to  reach  it  is  by  day  train  from 
Paris  to  Marseilles  ;  where  sleep  the  night,  and  rail 
on  next  morning  to  your  destination.  See  later 
for  the  question  of  stoppage  at  Aries,  Nimes,  or 
Avignon. 

Hyeres  is  a  pleasant  winter-resort  with  beautiful 
views  i  quiet  and  peaceful,  but  not  so  sheltered  as 
the  towns  farther  east.  It  overlooks  a  bay  with 
hilly  islands.  St.  Raphael  is  more  French  than 
English    and    American.      Cannes  is  a  vast   over- 


France:  Outside  Paris  103 

grown  town  of  villas  and  gardens,  dull  and  formal, 
but  with  beautiful  drives  and  charming  views.  I 
recommend  it  for  elderly  people,  y^ntibes  (or 
rather  Cap  d'Antibes),  which  I  prefer  myself  to  all 
the  Rivieran  stations,  is  countrified  and  rocky,  with 
charming  walks,  and  exquisite  glimpses  of  sea  and 
snow  mountain.  But  if  you  go  there,  remember  to 
go  to  the  Cap,  not  to  the  town,  which  is  dirty  and 
sunless.  Nice  is  of  course  the  "Great  Town  "  of 
the  Riviera ;  it  has  plenty  of  distractions,  but  is 
less  sheltered  than  Cannes  or  Mentone,  being  open 
to  the  mistral.  It  is  more  a  town  for  pleasure 
than  for  health.  A  visit  of  a  week  gives  you  a 
good  glimpse  of  a  certain  side  of  the  cosmopolitan 
European  watering-places.  Monte  Carlo  and  Mo- 
naco are  the  most  beautiful  spots  along  this  beautiful 
coast,  but  on  the  other  hand  they  are  the  centre  of 
the  gambling  industry.  Mentone  is  deliciously 
situated  in  a  charming  valley,  with  endless  lovely 
walks  and  drives,  but  with  a  somewhat  narrow 
society.  It  has  the  warmest  climate  of  any,  and 
is  suitable  for  invalids.  These  practically  exhaust 
the  towns  of  the  French  Riviera,  which  is  the  one 
deservedly  most  affected  by  American  visitors. 

The  reader  must  bear  in  mind  that  none  of 
these  towns  have  anything  in  the  way  of  art  or  of 
antiquity    to  delay  the   visitor.       They    are    resi- 


104  '^^^  European  Tour 

dential  creations  almost  as  purely  modern  as  New- 
port or  Saratoga.  It  is  true  most  of  them  include 
an  "  old  town,"  — a  dirty,  picturesque,  steep  white 
Mediterranean  village,  perched  on  a  craggy  hill, 
and  still  looking  much  the  same  as  in  the  Middle 
Ages  ;  but  these  "  oid  towns  "  contain  nothing  in 
the  way  of  architecture  or  painting  to  detain  the 
visitor;  they  are  interesting  merely  in  a  distant 
view  ;  seen  nearer,  they  become  offensive  to  more 
than  one  of  the  senses.  Whoever  stops  on  the 
Riviera  must  regard  that  part  of  his  tour  merely 
as  an  agreeable  loitering  in  pretty  country,  beset 
with  roses,  and  overlooking  a  summer  sea  in 
the  depth  of  winter.  There  are  a  few  Roman 
remains,  however,  at  Frejus  (scarcely  worth  the 
trouble  of  a  visit) ;  while  Aries,  Nimes,  and 
Avignon,  which  may  be  taken  on  the  way  south 
to  Marseilles,  have  truly  splendid  remains  of  an- 
tiquity. But  the  coast  itself,  long  decimated  by 
the  Saracens,  is  remarkable  in  Europe  for  its  ex- 
traordinary lack  of  historical  interest.  It  is  just 
a  great  green  paradise  of  modern  villadom,  — 
white  houses  set  deep  among  palms  and  gardens. 
I  ought  to  add  that  one  may  visit  on  the  way 
south  three  interesting  towns.  Avignon  is  note- 
worthy for  the  old  palace  of  the  Popes,  inhabited 
by  them  during  their  seventy  years  of  exile ;  Nimes 


France:   Outside  Paris  105 

for  its  splendid  Roman  temple  (the  Maison  Carree), 
with  other  fine  ruins ;  and  Jrles  both  for  its  Roman 
amphitheatre,  or  other  classical  remains,  and  for  its 
exquisite  Romanesque  church  of  St.  Trophime,  the 
glorious  portal  and  sculptured  cloisters  of  which 
must  rank  among  the  finest  architectural  works  in 
Europe. 

Theoretically,  the  Italian  Riviera  ought  to  be 
treated  under  Italy ;  practically,  however,  it  forms 
a  continuous  strip  with  the  French  Riviera,  and  is 
always  visited  at  the  same  time,  on  the  way  to  the 
great  artistic  towns  of  the  peninsula,  such  as 
Florence  and  Venice.  Its  characteristics  are 
exactly  the  same  as  those  of  the  French  coast 
which  adjoins  it ;  but  it  is  not  quite  so  mountain- 
ous or  quite  so  beautiful.  Indeed,  the  shore  grows 
gradually  finer  and  the  hills  taller  from  Marseilles 
to  Mentone,  where  the  scenery  reaches  its  culmi- 
nating point  of  beauty  ;  they  grow  gradually  less 
fine  again  as  we  proceed  farther  east  from  Mentone 
to  Genoa.  Artistically,  there  is  little  or  nothing  to 
choose  between  them ;  the  Italian  "  old  towns  " 
are  quite  as  filthy  and  a  trifle  more  picturesque, 
but  contain  even  less  of  architectural  or  graphic 
interest.  The  arcaded  streets  and  steep  alleys, 
however,  have  a  dirty  attractiveness  of  their  own 
which  is  undeniable  and  unwholesome. 


io6  The  European  Tour 

Three  chief  stations  along  the  Italian  Riviera 
deserve  the  attention  of  the  tourist.  Bordighera 
"s  pretty,  quiet,  and  warm ;  it  affords  chances  for 
excursions  to  many  quaint  mountain-villages,  such 
as  Dolce  Acqua,  with  its  picturesque  bridge  and 
the  ruined  mediaeval  castle  of  the  Dorias.  San 
Remo  is  fashionable,  well  situated,  sheltered,  and 
amusing,  with  a  delightful  sea-front,  a  palm-bordered 
promenade,  many  attractive  drives,  and  beautiful 
surroundings.  Massio  is  tamer,  but  forms  a  con- 
venient spot  to  break  the  journey  to  Genoa. 

As  a  whole,  I  advise  the  tourist  to  visit  the  Rivi- 
era only  as  a  place  of  retreat  from  the  cold  of  mid- 
winter. Intrinsically,  it  has  no  claims  save  those 
of  beautiful  natural  scenery,  lush  southern  vegeta- 
tion, charming  sunny  sea,  and  fine  shapes  of  moun- 
tains. The  railroad  route  along  the  coast,  indeed,  is 
one  constant  succession  of  exquisite  pictures,  —  blue 
or  purple  bays,  craggy  promontories  and  steep  islands, 
white  villages  perched  high  on  gray  mountain  spurs, 
towns  that  gleam  and  bask  among  olive  and  lemon 
groves.  But  it  is  merely  beautiful.  It  teaches 
you  little  that  is  distinctively  European.  Look 
upon  it  rather  as  a  retreat  from  the  coldest  time  of 
the  winter  than  as  a  part  of  your  travel. 

The  following  would  be  a  good  plan  for  passing 
the  colder  months.       Set  out  from  Paris  about  the 


France :  Outside  Paris  1 07 

beginning  of  November.  Stop  at  Dijon,  and  (if 
you  wish  it)  at  Lyons.  Then  spend  a  few  days, 
en  route  to  Marseilles,  in  exploring  the  many 
antiquarian  and  artistic  monuments  of  Avignon, 
Aries,  and  Nimes.  Pass  one  night  or  more  at 
Marseilles  (very  little  to  see)  and  then  go  on  for  a 
week  to  Hyeres.  After  that  move  slowly  along 
the  charmed  coast,  first  to  Cannes  or  Antibes, 
then  to  siren  Nice ;  or  spend  a  day  or  two  of 
feverish  excitement  at  Monte  Carlo,  undoubtedly 
the  centre  of  the  finest  scenery  of  the  district.  So 
to  Mentone,  where  the  peaceful  walks  on  mountain 
spires  and  the  romantic  drives  up  deep  glens  will 
delay  you  for  a  fortnight ;  then  cross  the  Italian 
frontier  to  Bordighera  or  San  Remo,  timing  yourself 
so  as  to  reach  Genoa  early  in  March,  or  even  to  spend 
February  in  Pisa  j  there  you  will  find  enough  to 
occupy  many  days  in  the  noble  Romanesque 
buildings  of  the  Cathedral  group  and  the  paintings 
and  sculptures  of  the  too  little  visited  museum. 

Now  that  I  am  on  the  question  of  the  disposition 
of  these  colder  months^  I  may  add  parenthetically  that 
those  who  desire  to  utilise  them  in  seeing  and 
learning  have  three  or  four  other  courses  open  to 
them.  One  way  is  to  take  steamer  early  in 
November  from  Marseilles  for  Algiers,  and  to  spend 
the  winter  in  exploring  Algeria  and  Tunisia  i  which 


io8  The  European  Tour 

will  give  you  a  glimpse  of  Mohammedan  civilisation 
(or  barbarism).  Algiers  itself,  and  still  better 
its  delightful  suburb  of  Moustapha  Supericur,  are 
the  best  stations  for  the  very  coldest  weeks  ;  thence 
you  can  move  on  to  Constantine  and  Biskra  (the 
latter  in  an  oasis  of  the  desert,  now  approached  by 
rail);  returning  by  Tunis,  the  most  interesting  and 
unspoilt  town  in  this  part  of  North  Africa.  A 
second  plan  is  to  spend  the  cold  months  about 
Naples^  say  at  Amalfi  or  Capri,  which  are  more 
picturesque  and  attractive  than  the  Riviera,  while 
they  have  also  access  to  more  interesting  antiquities, 
and  leave  you  free  to  utilise  any  spell  of  fine 
weather  in  early  spring  at  Pompeii  or  Paestum. 
A  third  way  is  a  tour  in  Sicily^  where  you  can 
spend  the  coldest  time  in  Palermo,  and  go  on 
as  the  weather  improves  to  Syracuse,  Cat<.nia, 
Taormina,  and  Messina.  Finally  you  can  escape 
the  winter  altogether  by  taking  refuge  in  Egypt, 
where  a  fortnight  in  Cairo  may  be  succeeded  by  a 
trip  up  the  Nile  to  the  First  Cataract. 

I  apologise  for  this  digression,  which  is  neverthe- 
less apposite,  and  return  to  France.  Briefly,  here, 
my  advice  may  be  summed  up  thus.  Spend  most 
of  the  time  you  devote  to  this  country  in  Paris ;  do 
not  try  to  see  much  else,  except  what  lies  conven- 
iently on  your  route  to  Switzerland  or  Italy,  unless 


France:   Outside  Paris  109 

you  already  know  Europe  well,  and  have  plenty  of 
time  to  spare  for  objects  of  secondary  or  tertiary 
interest.  In  that  case  you  may  see  Normandy, 
Brittany,  Auvergne,  the  Pyrenees;  but  then  you 
will  need  no  advice;  you  have  passed  by  that 
time  beyond  the  stage  of  a  novice,  and  are  in 
a  position  to  frame  your  own  itineraries.  Do  not, 
in  any  case,  trouble  much  about  the  great  towns, 
—  Marseilles,  Lyons,  Bordeaux,  and  so  forth ; 
they  offer  little  to  detain  you.  Make,  rather,  for 
the  famous  cathedrals,  —  Amiens,  Rouen,  Chartres, 
Laon,  Rheims,  Beauvais,  Poitiers  ;  or  for  the  Roman 
towns,  Aries,  Nimes,  Orange,  Valence;  or  for 
what  is  mediaevally  interesting  or  of  Renaissance 
importance,  —  Carcassonne,  Tarascon,  Bourges, 
Tours,  Blois,  Orleans.  If  you  can  see  something 
worth  s  •!  ig  on  your  way  to  or  fro,  by  all  means 
see  it;  but  do  not  turn  out  of  your  course 
for  anything.  You  will  find  a  thousand  objects 
of  vastly  greater  importance  crying  for  your  atten- 
tion in  the  Flemish  towns,  in  the  Rhine  country, 
above  all,  in  Italy. 

Paris  firsts  very  much  first  j  and  the  provinces 
nowhere. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

BELGIUM    AND    HOLLAND 

EXCEPT  Italy,  there  is  nothing  in  Europe  so 
valuable,  so  instructive  as  Belgium. 
The  reason  is  that  Belgium  in  the  Norths  like 
Italy  in  the  ^owth.,  formed  the  commercial  and  there- 
fore also  the  artistic  centre  of  medievalism.  The 
great  towns  of  the  Low  Countries  were  the  indus- 
trial capitals  of  the  North  and  West,  as  Florence, 
Venice,  and  Constantinople  were  the  industrial 
capitals  of  the  South  and  East.  Long  before 
England  had  risen  above  the  condition  of  an  agri- 
cultural country,  subsisting  on  its  exports  of  wool 
to  the  manufacturing  continent,  Belgium  ranked 
as  a  mighty  commercial  focus.  While  Liverpool 
was  a  tidal  waste  on  the  Mersey,  Bruges  was  the 
great  port  for  the  exportation  of  cloth  and  the  im- 
portation of  wool  and  furs  and  spices.  While 
Manchester  was  a  rural  market  town,  Ghent  was 
the  centre  of  the  textile  industries  of  Europe.  In 
every  way  the  cities  of  Belgium  led  the  van  of 
progress.     The  battle  of  the  trading  municipality 


Belgium  and  Holland  1 1 1 

against  the  feudal  lord  was  fought  out  by  the  Van 
Arteveldes  ;  nay,  even  the  battle  of  the  labourer 
against  the  capitalist  was  foreshadowed  by  the 
craftsmen  of  Louvain  and  Ypres.  You  can  under- 
stand the  later  middle  ages  aright  only  by  a  visit 
to  the  Low  Countries. 

Moreover,  Belgi  n  has  escaped  the  terrible  cata- 
clysms of  the  Protestant  Reformation  and  the  French 
Revolution  far  better  than  any  other  part  of  North- 
western Europe.  In  England  you  get  only  the 
bare  skeletons  of  cathedrals  and  churches,  robbed 
of  their  sculpture,  their  painting,  and  their  decora- 
tive work  by  the  grasping  grantees  of  Henry  VIII. 
or  the  brutal  Puritan  soldiers  of  Cromwell's  army. 
When  Henry  dissolved  the  monasteries,  he  stripped 
them  of  all  their  precious  stones  and  other  valuable 
assets  for  his  own  emolument ;  or  else  handed 
them  over  to  great  nobles  whose  acquiescence  in 
his  schemes  of  spoliation  he  thus  purchased,  and 
who  proceeded  in  their  reckless  greed  to  tear  the 
very  lead  from  the  roofs  and  the  frontals  from  the 
altars.  During  the  succeeding  dynastic  and  reli- 
gious troubles,  most  of  the  works  of  art  in  ecclesi- 
astical buildings  were  destroyed  or  impaired  by  the 
mistaken  zeal  of  the  Protestant  party ;  and  what 
little  survived  till  the  reign  of  Charles  I.  was 
mostly  smashed  or  defaced  beyond  recognition  at 


1 1 2  The  European  Tour 

the  hands  of  the  Puritan  fanatics  of  the  Common- 
wealth. Hence  it  happens  that  in  England  the 
cathedrals  and  abbeys  are  now  either  absolute  ruins 
or  else  bare  architectural  fabrics,  entirely  devoid  of 
the  sculpture,  the  frescoes,  the  mosaics,  the  stained 
glass,  the  enamels,  the  draperies  that  once  adorned 
them.  Often  they  have  been  "  restored  "  with 
the  machine-made  art  of  London  or  Birmingham. 
Similarly  in  France,  though  the  destruction 
wrought  either  by  the  abortive  Reformation  or  by 
the  Sans-culottes  of  *93  was  not  quite  so  disas- 
trous as  that  wrought  by  the  Protestants  and  the 
Roundheads  in  England,  yet  we  possess  hardly  a 
church  which  now  displays  in  any  fulness  its  origi- 
nal wealth  of  internal  decoration.  The  best  in 
the  Paris  district,  such  as  St.  Denis,  the  Sainte 
Chapelle,  and  Notre-Dame,  have  been  largely  re- 
stored, especially  as  to  their  sculpture  and  ornaments; 
while  outside  Paris,  though  the  carven  figures  and 
the  stained  glass  have  largely  escaped  destruction 
at  Chartres,  at  Rheims,  and  at  Rouen,  yet  few 
churches  have  retained  any  notable  proportion  of 
their  coloured  mural  decorations  or  their  works  of 
painting  and  other  subsidiary  arts.  In  England,  in 
short,  you  get  mere  skeletons ;  in  France,  some- 
what maimed  and  hacked-about  corpses. 

But   Belgium,  though    severely   treated   by  the 


Belgium  and  Holland  113 

early  reformers  and  the  Spanish  hordes,  still  retains 
for  us  more  of  its  mediceval  splendour  than  any  other 
part  of  modern  North  Europe.  Its  churches  are 
full  of  ancient  pictures  and  decorative  works;  its 
museums  are  rich  in  national  products;  its  town 
halls  are  glorious  specimens  of  Gothic  secular 
architecture,  unrivalled  elsewhere.  In  Belgium, 
indeed,  for  the  first  time,  the  American  visitor  be- 
gins to  understand  the  charm  of  studying  a  people's 
history  and  a  people's  art  side  by  side  in  the 
country  of  their  origin,  —  the  charm  of  seeing  the 
actual  pictures  and  sculpture  and  decorations  in 
the  very  spots  where  they  were  first  produced,  and 
still  devotv^d  to  the  purposes  for  which  their 
makers  and  their  donors  designed  them.  It  is  one 
thing  to  see  a  Raphael  in  the  National  Gallery  of 
London  or  the  Louvre  at  Paris,  divorced  from  the 
circumstances  which  begot  it  and  the  land  which 
called  it  forth ;  quite  another  thing  to  see  on  an 
altar  at  Ghent  the  great  Van  Eyck  of  the  Adora- 
tion of  the  Lamb,  still  occupying  the  very  niche  in 
the  private  chapel  of  the  Vydts  family  who  com- 
missioned it  —  the  very  niche  in  which  Jan  van 
Eyck  himself  deposited  it.  It  is  one  thing  to  see 
a  Rubens  in  Munich  or  Vienna;  quite  another 
thing  to  see  it  on  the  grave  of  Moretus  in 
Antwerp  Cathedral,  where  the  great  painter  placed 

8 


1 1 4  The  European  Tour 

it  above  the  recent  ashes  of  his  friend  and 
patron. 

Therefore  I  say  to  you,  if  your  aim  is  culture,  it 
\%far  more  important  for  you  to  see  the  cities  of  Bel- 
gium than  even  to  see  London  or  Paris, 

In  my  Historical  Guide  to  the  Cities  of 
Belgium  I  have  dealt  in  detail  with  the  chief 
objects  of  interest  in  this  delightful  country ;  and 
I  take  it  for  granted  that  in  making  the  plan  of 
your  tour  you  vi^ill  turn  for  further  particulars  to 
that  little  volume.  So  I  will  deal  here  mainly 
with  the  question  what  parts  of  Belgium  are  best 
worth  visiting  by  the  American  tourist,  and  in 
what  order  he  ought  to  approach  the  chief  centres 
of  interest. 

You  may  reach  Belgium  either  from  England 
direct  or  from  Paris.  If  from  England  direct, 
then  the  proper  order  of  the  towns  is,  as  it  were, 
mapped  out  for  you  by  the  railway  system  ;  for 
you  will  land  at  Ostend  (if  you  take  the  shortest 
and  most  frequented  route)  and  proceed  straight  to 
Bruges ;  whence  you  will  go  on  to  Ghent  and 
Brussels  ;  and  thence  to  Antwerp,  thus  taking  each 
in  its  right  evolutionary  and  historical  sequence,  as 
I  shall  explain  hereafter.  But  the  sea  passage 
from  Dover  to  Ostend  is  about  four  hours  long ; 
and  many  people,  especially  ladies,  prefer  the  shorter 


Belgium  and  Holland  115 

Channel  crossing  (involving  though  it  does  a  longer 
railway  journey)  via  Dover  and  Calais.  Now, 
please  note  this  next  remark  carefully,  because  it 
is  one  of  the  highest  importance  for  your  right 
comprehension  of  the  history  and  art  of  the  Low 
Countries.  Whether  you  approach  Belgium  from 
Calais  or  from  Paris,  do  not  let  mere  convenience 
of  travel  distract  you  into  the  fatal  course  of  going 
to  Brussels  first.  However  you  arrive,  make 
straight  for  Bruges^  and  for  Bruges  alone,  even  if  it 
costs  you  an  extra  hour  or  two  hours  of  railway 
travelling.  You  will  never  regret  it;  or  rather, 
you  will  never  cease  to  thank  me  for  having  saved 
you  from  a  step  which  may  spoil  half  the  pleasure 
and  profit  of  your  trip  to  Belgium.  If  you  fool- 
ishly visit  Brussels  first,  you  will  say  over  and  over 
again  at  Ghent  and  Bruges,  "  How  I  wish  I  had 
come  here  before  going  to  Brussels ! "  Nay,  if 
you  are  a  conscientious  traveller  and  once  commit 
this  error,  you  may  even  feel  constrained  to  see 
Brussels  over  again,  in  order  to  re-read  its  monu- 
ments and  collections  by  the  light  of  what  you  have 
learned  in  Bruges.  For  Bruges  stands  at  the  very 
base  of  the  art  of  the  Low  Countries ;  and  only  by 
building  up  your  knowledge  by  gradual  stages  from 
Bruges  to  Antwerp  can  you  ever  understand  what 
it  is  all  driving  at. 


1 1 6  The  European  Tour 

The  most  fatal  step  of  all^  however,  is  to  visit 
Antwerp  first.  For  Antwerp  is  the  end,  not  the 
beginning,  of  Flemish  art  and  Flemish  history. 
Do  not  let  anybody  or  anything  persuade  to  make 
this  hopeless  practical  blunder.  If,  therefore,  con- 
venience or  cheapness  of  travel  induces  you  to 
select  the  comfortable  steamer  from  Harwich  to 
Antwerp  as  your  means  of  entering  Belgium,  I 
implore  you  not  to  stop  and  see  the  city  then  and 
there,  but  to  take  the  train  direct  to  Bruges,  which 
visit  first ;  then  go  on  to  Ghent ;  thence  to  Brussels  ; 
and  only  finish  up  your  tour  with  Antwerp.  In 
other  words,  however  you  arrive  in  the  country,  I 
charge  you,  as  you  value  your  souPs  education,  not 
to  follow  any  other  order  in  visiting  the  chief 
centres  than  this  —  Bruges ;  Ghent  j  Ypres ;  Brus- 
sels ;  Louvain ;  Malines ;  Antwerp.  The  towns  I 
have  put  in  Italics  are  those  of  secondary  impor- 
tance, which  you  may  omit  or  not  as  you  choose ; 
Hut  the  four  in  Roman  type  you  must  see,  and  see 
in  this  order.  I  do  not  say  this  dogmatically,  but 
for  a  sufficient  reason,  which  I  hope  to  make  you 
feel  for  yourself  in  the  sequel. 

Bruges  comes  first,  because  Bruges  is  the  oldest 
and  artistically  the  richest  of  the  cities  of  the  Low 
Countries.  In  my  own  opinion,  it  is  also  the  most 
interesting  and  charming  town  in  Europe,  outside 


Belgium  and  Holland  1 17 

Italy.  I  do  not  mean  merely  that  it  abounds  in 
works  of  art  of  all  kinds,  but  that  here  you  see  the 
town  itself  in  a  condition  which  still  largely  recalls 
the  mediaeval  burgher  republic  under  whose  aegis 
these  works  of  art  had  their  natural  origin.  Bruges 
is  a  fossil  of  the  fifteenth,  sixteenth,  and  seven- 
teenth centuries ;  with  much  modern  admixture,  it 
is  true,  but  none  the  less  a  fossil. 

In  order  to  understand  Bruges  and  the  rest  of 
Flanders  aright,  we  must  remember  that  the  great 
trading  towns  of  the  Low  Countries  were  the  earli- 
est in  the  North  to  recover  from  the  cataclysm 
which  overwhelmed  the  Roman  Empire,  and  from 
the  lethargy  which  followed  it.  From  the  fifth  to 
the  ninth  century,  the  arts  of  the  ancient  world 
were  dormant  and  almost  dead  in  the  West  of 
Europe.  When  civilisation  began  to  creep  North 
again  after  its  long  sleep  of  the  dark  ages,  it  was 
left  for  the  Frankish  Karl,  whom  modern  Europe 
knows  best  under  his  French  name  of  Charlemagne^ 
to  introduce  Roman  crafts  and  Roman  letters  once 
more  into  the  barbarised  Rhineland.  The  Rhine 
from  Basle  to  Cologne,  as  we  shall  see  a  little  later, 
was  the  region  most  influenced  by  this  fitful  revival 
of  the  Roman  Empire  in  its  Teutonic  guise,  —  the 
"  Holy  Roman  Empire  "  of  later  mediaeval  systc- 
matists.     But  Charlemagne  had  his   chief  seat  at 


1 1 8  The  European  Tour 

Aix-la-Chapellc  or  Aachen  near  the  modern  Bel- 
gian frontier,  and  his  dominions  included  not  only 
Belgium,  Holland,  PVance,  and  Germany  (to  anti- 
cipate the  familiar  modern  terms),  but  also  the 
greater  part  of  Austria  and  Italy,  as  well  as  por- 
tions of  Spain  and  a  few  other  countries.  Of  the 
northern  half  of  this  extended  realm,  the  Rhine 
formed  the  chief  natural  water-way ;  and  it  con- 
tinued to  be  one  of  the  main  highroads  of  traffic 
throughout  the  Middle  Ages.  But  the  Flemish 
towns,  lying  conveniently  near  its  mouths  for  trade 
and  manufacture,  rose  rapidly  to  be  the  chief  indus- 
trial and  commercial  centres  of  the  new  system, 
and  grew  by  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centu- 
ries to  be  the  ports  and  marts,  the  Liverpools, 
Manchesters,  and  Birminghams  of  the  mediaeval 
world. 

Many  causes  contributed  to  this  result.  Flan- 
ders^ half  independent  under  its  own  Counts,  after 
the  empire  of  Charlemagne's  descendants  had 
practically  split  up  into  France  and  Germany,  was 
comparatively  free  from  the  disastrous  wars  and 
dynastic  quarrels  which  desolated  both  the  larger 
countries.  Bruges,  situated  on  an  inlet  of  the  sea 
now  long  since  silted  up,  and  known  as  the  Zwin, 
became  the  chief  station  of  the  famous  Hanseatic 
League,    which    was    an    essentially    commercial 


Belgium  and  Holland  1 1 9 

federation  of  the  great  trading-towns  of  the  North 
for  mutual  protection  against  piratical  enemies  or 
feudal  exactions.  By  the  fourteenth  century  it 
had  become  for  the  Atlantic  what  Venice  was  for 
the  Adriatic  and  the  Mediterranean  ;  trading  com- 
panies from  all  the  surrounding  countries  had  their 
"  factories "  or  agencies  seated  in  the  town,  and 
every  king  of  importance  kept  a  minister  accredited 
to  the  merchant  city.  Thus  Caxton  was  governor 
of  the  English  "  factory "  at  Bruges,  where  he 
learnt  the  art  of  printing  from  Colard  Mansion  ; 
and  the  Medici  of  Florence,  the  Banca  di  San 
Giorgio  of  Genoa,  and  the  millionaire  Fuggers  of 
Augsburg  had  all  their  representatives  in  this  early 
Flemish  London. 

A  single  paragraph  from  my  Historical  Guide 
will  serve  to  make  this  point  clearer  :  — 

"  Some  comprehension  of  the  mercantile  condition 
of  Europe  in  general  during  the  Middle  Ages  is 
necessary  in  order  to  understand  the  early  impor- 
tance and  wealth  of  the  Flemish  cities.  Southern 
Europe,  and  in  particular  Italy,  was  then  still  the 
seat  of  all  higher  civilisation,  more  especially  of  the 
trade  in  manufactured  articles  and  objects  of  luxury. 
Florence,  Venice,  and  Genoa  ranked  as  the  pol- 
ished and  learned  cities  of  the  world.  Farther 
east,  again,  Constantinople  still   remained   in  the 


120  The  European  Tour 

hands  of  the  Greek  emperors,  or,  during  the 
Crusades,  of  their  Latin  rivals.  A  brisk  trade 
existed  via  the  Mediterranean  between  Europe 
and  India  or  the  nearer  East.  This  double  stream 
of  traffic  ran  along  two  main  routes,  —  one,  by  the 
Rhine,  from  Lombardy  and  Rome  ;  the  other,  by 
sea,  from  Venice,  Genoa,  Florence,  Constantinople, 
the  Levant,  and  India.  On  the  other  hand,  France 
was  still  but  a  half  civilised  country,  with  few 
manufactures  and  little  external  trade  ;  while  Eng- 
land was  an  exporter  of  raw  produce,  chiefly  wool, 
like  Australia  in  our  own  time.  The  Hanseatic 
merchants  of  Cologne  held  the  trade  of  London  ; 
those  of  Wisby  and  Lubeck  governed  that  of  the 
Baltic ;  Bruges,  as  head  of  the  Hansa,  was  in 
close  connection  with  all  of  these,  as  well  as  with 
Hull,  York,  Novgorod,  and  Bergen.  The  posi- 
tion of  the  Flemish  towns  in  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury was  thus  not  wholly  unlike  that  of  New  York, 
Philadelphia,  and  Boston  at  the  present  day  ;  they 
stood  as  intermediaries  between  the  older  civilised 
countries,  like  Italy  or  the  Greek  empire,  and  the 
newer  producers  of  raw  material,  like  England, 
North  Germany,  and  the  Baltic  towns.  The 
local  manufactures  of  Flanders  consisted  chiefly 
of  woollen  goods  and  linens  j  the  imports  included 
Italian   luxuries,  Spanish  figs  and  raisins,  Egyptian 


Belgium  and  Holland  121 

dates,  Oriental  silks,  English  wool,  cattle,  and 
metals,  Rhenish  wines  and  Baltic  furs,  skins,  and 
walrus  tusks.'* 

Of  this  busy  Flemish   world  of  the  fourteenth 
and     fifteenth    centuries,    Bruges    was    the    great 
centre.     The  art  that  grew  up  in  its  midst   bears 
on    its   very    face  the    impress  of  its   commercial 
origin.     France  is  essentially  a  monarchical  country, 
and  it  is  centralised  in  Paris,  where  everything  is 
regal   in    type,    from    the   Louvre    to    the    Sainte 
Chapelle,  from  the  royal  park  of  Versailles  to  the 
royal   basilica   of  St.  Denis.     The  Italian   towns, 
on    the    other    hand,    were    oligarchies    of   noble 
families ;    the    principal    buildings    of     Florence, 
Venice,  and    Genoa  are  therefore   the   castles   or 
palaces  of  princely  houses,  while  the  art  is  mainly 
that  of  the  painters   patronised  by  the  Medici  or 
the    Doges.     But    in    Flanders    everything    is    in 
essence     commercial.      The    architecture    consists 
mainly,  not  of  kingly  palaces  or  of  private  man- 
sions, but  of  guilds,  town  halls,  exchanges,  belfries ; 
the  pictures  are  the  portraits  of  solid  and  success- 
ful merchants,   or   the  devotional   works  which  a 
merchant  donor  presented  to  the  patron  saint  of 
his  town  or  business.     They  are  almost  overloaded 
with  details  of  fur,  brocade,  jewellery,  lace,  gold, 
silver,    polished    brass,   metal   work,  and    oriental 


122  The  European  Tour 

carpets ;  they  bespeak  a  wealthy  and  cultivated 
bourgeoisie.  In  order  to  understand  Flemish  art, 
therefore,  you  should  see  it  first  in  the  opulent 
merchant  towns  where  it  took  its  origin. 

The  nucleus  of  Bruges  is  formed  by  the  famous 
group  of  old  city  buildings^  including  the  Belfry^ 
which  was  the  embodiment  of  the  town  privileges, 
together  with  the  H6tel-de-Ville  and  its  subsidiary 
edifices.  These  Flemish  belfries  are  in  themselves 
very  interesting  relics,  because  they  were  the  first 
symbols  of  corporate  existence  and  municipal  power 
which  every  town  wished  to  erect  in  the  Middle 
Ages.  The  use  of  the  bell  was  to  summon  the 
citizens  to  arms  in  defence  of  their  rights,  or  to 
counsel  for  their  common  liberties.  Every  Teu- 
tonic burgher  community  desired  to  wring  the  right 
of  erecting  such  a  belfry  from  its  feudal  lord  j  and 
those  of  Bruges  and  Ghent  are  still  majestic 
memorials  of  the  freedom-loving  wool-staplers  of 
the  thirteenth  century.  By  the  side  of  the  Belfry 
stands  the  Cloth  Hall^  representing  the  trade  from 
which  the  town  derived  its  wealth  j  while  hard  by 
is  the  Hotel-de-VilUy  with  its  exquisite  little  Gothic 
chapel  of  the  Saint  Sang,  built  to  contain  some 
drops  of  the  Holy  Blood  of  Christ  which  Thierry 
of  Alsace  brought  back  from  the  Crusade  in  1149, 
and  thus  filly  comparable  from  a  certain  point  of 


Belgium  and  Holland  123 

view  with  the  Sainte  Chapelle  of  Paris.  This 
noble  and  stately  group  of  municipal  and  mercantile 
buildings  enables  us  mentally  to  reconstruct  the 
time  when  Bruges  was  the  greatest  commercial 
seaport  of  Western  Europe,  when  its  quays  were 
crowded  with  Venetian  ships  and  English  wool- 
merchants,  and  when  the  wealth  of  the  Rhine,  the 
Baltic,  and  the  Channel  poured  in  upon  it  daily  as 
the  chief  emporium  of  mediaeval  industry. 

These,  however,  are  but  the  first  attractions 
of  Bruges.  Add  to  them  a  charming  old  town, 
threaded  by  silent  canals  like  a  northern  Venice, 
and  with  houses  that  have  descended  to  us  straight 
from  the  seventeenth  century  or  earlier,  and  you 
will  understand  why  I  say  that  at  least  a  week 
should,  if  possible,  be  devoted  to  Bruges.  If  it  is  a 
question  of  cutting  short  the  time  either  here  or  at 
Brussels  or  Antwerp,  let  Brussels  and  Antwerp  go 
by  comparison.  Stick  to  what  is  most  impor- 
tant, most  instructive,  most  beautiful.  Don't  let 
the  fact  that  modern  arrangements  have  made 
Brussels  the  capital  of  a  mushroon  monarchy  mis- 
lead you.  Brussels  is  full  of  delightful  things,  it 
is  true,  but  it  has  not  half  the  real  interest  and 
value  of  Bruges.  See  this  by  all  means,  even  if 
you  are  therefore  compelled  to  skimp  for  time  the 
more  modern  cities. 


124  '^^^  European  Tour 

The  greatest  reason  of  all  for  going  to  Bruges, 
however,  is  to  see  its  pictures^  which  not  only  form 
the  groundwork  for  a  knowledge  of  Flemish  art, 
but  rank  as  one  of  the  greatest  treats  Europe  has  to 
offer.  The  most  important  collection,  consisting 
entirely  of  Memling's  masterpieces,  is  at  the  Hospital 
of  St.  'John^  a  very  ancient  foundation,  served  to 
the  present  day  by  the  Augustinian  nuns  who  were 
there  already  in  the  fourteenth  century,  and  who 
still  wear  the  same  dress  as  in  Memling's  pictures. 
This  little  gallery  of  one  man's  art  may  fairly 
rank  with  the  Fra  Angelicos  at  San  Marco  in 
Florence  and  the  Giottos  in  the  Madonna  dell* 
Arena  at  Padua,  as  one  of  the  three  most  interest- 
ing collections  in  the  world.  There  are  only 
some  half-dozen  works,  it  is  true ;  but  they  will 
occupy  you  with  pleasure  for  many  visits.  The 
chief  gem  is  the  casket  containing  the  arm  of  St. 
Ursula,  who  was  martyred  at  Cologne,  with  her 
11,000  virgins,  by  the  heathen  Huns  about  the 
fifth  century.  The  sides,  the  ends,  and  the  roof 
of  this  exquisite  little  shrine,  a  Gothic  chapel  in 
miniature,  are  covered  with  dainty  pictures  of  the 
legend  of  the  saint,  one  of  the  most  poetic  in  the 
whole  range  of  hagiology  ;  and  they  have  been 
treated  by  Memling  in  the  spirit  of  a  fairy  tale, 
with  an    art  that  carries  away  every  sympathetic 


Belgium  and  Holland  125 

visitor.  The  idyllic  painter  reads  the  whole  tale  as 
a  series  of  episodes  in  a  courtly  life,  like  that  of 
the  Burgundian  princes  at  Bruges  in  his  own  time ; 
and  he  has  therefore  given  us  such  a  set  of  scenes 
in  silk  and  velvet  costumes  of  the  period,  idealised 
and  poeticised,  as  once  beheld  must  live  with  one 
forever. 

Whatever  else  you  omit  in  Europe,  try  hard  to 
see  these  exquisite  and  immortal  pictures. 

As  a  single  example  of  the  way  in  which,  as  I 
believe,  such  works  ought  to  be  studied,  in  con- 
nection with  the  place  and  circumstances  which 
gave  them  birth,  I  will  extract  from  my  Histori- 
cal Guide  the  description  of  one  among  these 
delicious  works,  of  which  the  ordinary  account 
would  be  merely  that  it  represented  the  Adoration 
of  the  Magi,  by  Memling.  In  order  really  to 
understand  what  such  a  picture  is  driving  at, 
the  description  should  rather  run  somewhat  as 
follows  :  — 

"  Near  the  window  by  the  entrance  is  a  Trip- 
tych^ also  by  Memling,  commissioned  by  Brother 
Jan  Floreins  of  this  Hospital.  The  central  panel 
represents  the  Adoration  of  the  Magi^  which  takes 
place,  as  usual,  under  a  ruined  temple  fitted  up  as 
a  manger.  The  Eldest  of  the  Three  Kings 
(according  to  precedent)  is  kneeling  and  has  pre- 


1 26  The  European  Tour 

sented  his  gift ;  Joseph,  recognisable  (in  all  three 
panels)  by  his  red  and  black  robe,  stands  erect 
behind  him,  with  the  presented  gift  in  his  hands. 
The  Middle-aged  King,  arrayed  in  cloth  of  gold, 
with  a  white  tippet,  kneels  with  his  gift  to  the  L. 
of  the  picture.  The  Young  Kiiig,  a  black  man, 
as  always,  is  entering  with  his  gift  to  the  right. 
The  three  thus  typify  the  Three  Ages  of  Man,  and 
also  the  three  known  continents,  Europe,  Asia, 
Africa.  On  the  L.  side  of  this  central  panel  are 
figured  the  donor,  Jan  Floreins,  and  his  brother 
Jacob.  (Members  of  the  same  family  are  grouped 
in  the  well-known  "  Duchatel  Madonna,"  also  by 
Memling,  in  the  Louvre.)  To  the  right  is  a 
figure  looking  in  at  a  window  and  wearing  the 
yellow  cap  still  used  by  convalescents  of  the 
Hospital  (arbitrarily  said  to  be  a  portrait  of  Mem- 
ling).  The  left  panel  represents  the  Nativity,  with 
our  Lady,  St.  Joseph,  and  two  adoring  angels. 
The  right  panel  shows  the  Presentation  in  the 
Temple,  with  Simeon  and  Anna,  and  St.  Joseph 
(in  red  and  black)  in  the  background.  (The  whole 
thus  typifies  the  Epiphany  of  Christ  j  left,  to  the 
Blessed  Virgin;  centre,  to  the  Gentiles ;  right,  to 
the  Jews.)  The  outer  panels^  in  pursuance  of 
the  same  idea,  have  figures ;  right,  of  St.  John 
Baptist  with  the  lamb  (he  pointed  out   Christ  to 


Belgium  and  Holland  127 

the  Jews),  with  the  Baptism  of  Christ  in  the  back- 
ground ;  and  left,  St.  Veronica,  who  preserved  for 
us  the  features  of  our  Lord,  displaying  his  divine 
face  on  her  napkin.  The  architectural  frame 
shows  the  First  Sin  and  the  Expulsion  from  Para- 
dise. Note  everywhere  the  strong  character  in 
the  men's  faces,  and  the  exquisite  landscape  or 
architectural  backgrounds.  Dated  1479.  This 
is  Memling's  finest  altar-piece  :  its  glow  of  colour 
is  glorious." 

The  other  little  collection  at  the  Academy  will 
introduce  you  to  Jan  van  Eyck,  the  founder  of 
the  Flemish  school  of  painting,  to  Gerard  David, 
and  to  many  other  Flemish  artists  of  the  highest 
importance. 

Mention  of  the  Burgundian  court  too  reminds 
me  that  Bruges  is  the  natural  place  in  which  to 
study  the  dynastic  history  of  the  Netherlands  under 
its  native  princes,  its  Burgundian  rulers,  and  its 
later  Spanish  despots.  In  one  of  the  two  splendid 
churches  of  the  town —  rich  in  other  works  of  art 
as  well — you  will  find  the  tombs,  the  costly  and 
gorgeous  tombs,  of  Charles  the  Bold  and  his 
daughter  Mary  of  Burgundy ;  pegs  on  which  you 
may  hang  your  knowledge  of  that  powerful  dynasty 
whose  memorials  will  pursue  you  across  the  rest 
of  Europe,  from  Venice  to  Madrid,  from  Vienna 


128  The  European  Tour 

to  Brussels,  from  Rome  to  Innsbruck.  The 
famous  chimney-piece  of  the  old  Palais  de  Justice 
hard  by  will  show  you  the  effigies  of  the  ancestors 
of  Charles  V.  in  a  form  which  readily  fixes  their 
relationship  on  your  memory.  Here  and  here  only 
you  get  the  tangled  threads  unravelled :  here  and 
here  only  the  history  lives  again  for  you. 

I  have  dwelt  long  on  Bruges — comparatively; 
but  I  wish  space  permitted  me  to  dwell  longer. 
For  it  fascinates.  Go  there  early,  and  do  not 
hurry  away  from  it.  You  must  drink  it  in  slowly, 
and  you  may  learn  much  from  it.  Besides  which, 
every  walk  through  the  town  is  a  succession  of 
pictures ;  the  old  walls,  the  gates,  the  step-gables 
of  the  houses,  the  Madonnas  in  the  niches,  the 
turrets,  the  reliefs,  everything  is  delightful,  and 
everything  tells  you  you  are  back  in  the  Middle 
Ages. 

Ghent  was  in  its  time  as  fine  a  town  as  Bruges, 
and  must  once  have  be^-n  as  rich  in  sculpture, 
painting,  and  decorations.  But  it  has  been  more 
fully  modernised^  and  perhaps  two  days,  or  at  least 
three,  may  satisfy  the  enquiring  mind  of  the 
American  tourist.  While  Bruges  was  the  chief 
seaport,  Ghent  was  the  chief  manufacturing  town 
of  the  fourteenth  century.  Into  its  history  and  its 
connection  with   the  England  of  Edward  III.   I 


Belgium  and  Holland  129 

have  gone  at  length  in  my  Historical  Guide. 
The  chief  reasons  for  visiting  it  at  present  are  its 
fine  old  churches,  its  Town  Hall  and  Belfry,  its 
excellent  pictures,  and  above  all  its  glorious  polyp- 
tych  of  the  Adoration  of  the  Lamb  by  Hubert  and  Jan 
van  Eyck,  which  forms  the  first  great  work  of  the 
Flemish  school  of  painting.  Thi'^  immense  altar- 
piece  occupies  the  spot  where  it  was  originally 
placed,  in  the  chapel  of  the  Vydts  family,  in  the 
Church  of  St.  John  Baptist  (now  the  Cathedral  of 
St.  Bavon),  and  to  see  it  properly  requires  more 
than  two  or  three  visits ;  for  though  nominally  one 
picture,  and  really  taken  up  with  a  single  scene,  it 
consists  of  many  separate  figures  and  episodes  in 
different  tiers,  and  contains  within  itself  an  epitome 
of  Flemish  theology  and  symbolism  in  the  fifteenth 
century.  I  have  elsewhere  given  a  full  explana- 
tion of  its  numerous  groups  of  saints  and  martyrs. 
As  for  Brussels^  I  need  not  press  its  claims  upon 
the  tourist's  attention.  As  a  rule,  indeed,  the  ten- 
dency of  visitors  is  to  allot  an  unduly  long  propor- 
tion of  their  time  to  the  Belgian  capital,  and  to 
put  off  Bruges  and  Ghent,  collectively  so  much 
more  beautiful  and  interesting,  with  a  day  each,  or 
at  best  a  couple  of  days  of  hurried  sight-seeing. 
This  is  a  serious  error.  Not  that  I  wish  to  detract 
from  the  charms  of  Brussels ;  for  I  confess  I  find 

9 


130  The  European  Tour 

it  one  of  the  most  fascinating  and  alluring  cities  in 
Europe,  one  from  which  it  is  hard  to  tear  oneself. 
It  is  usial  to  speak  of  Brussels  as  "  a  miniature 
Paris."  The  judgment,  I  venture  to  say,  is  essen- 
tially a  vulgar  one.  Brussels  has  far  more  that  is 
interesting  to  show  one  than  Paris,  except  as  re- 
gards the  foreign  collections  —  Italian,  classical, 
Assyrian,  Egyptian,  etc.  —  of  the  French  capital. 
In  local  and  national  art,  Brussels  is  the  richer  of 
the  two.  If  what  people  mean  is  that  both  towns 
have  boulevards,  cafes^  gardens,  squares,  parks, 
kiosks,  theatres,  and  music-halls,  —  in  short,  the 
common  features  of  modern  European  town  life, — 
and  that  Paris,  being  larger,  has  naturally  more  of 
them,  of  course  they  are  right }  but  then,  on  the 
same  principle,  one  might  as  well  call  Chicago  a 
big  Brussels.  In  genuine  interest,  Brussels  runs 
Paris  close,  and  in  some  ways  beats  it ;  only  those 
who  do  not  care  for  art  or  antiquity  could  ever  say 
that  "  Brussels  disappoints  if  seen  after  Paris."  As 
a  place  of  prolonged  residence,  it  is  simply  delight- 
ful,—  bright,  airy,  open,  not  too  big,  with  all  its 
parts  accessible  -,  and  every  other  great  centre  in 
Europe  can  be  reached  from  it  more  easily  than 
from  any  other  city,  if  one  takes  all  together. 
Indeed,  when  I  think  of  its  glorious  contents,  I  do 
not  envy  the  man  who  does  not  love  Brussels. 


Belgium  and  Holland  1 3 1 

Take  up  your  quarters  in  the  upper  town^  not 
far  from  the  King's  Palace,  where  you  have  fresh 
air,  and  space,  and  are  nearest  to  everything. 

The  sights  of  Brussels  are  of  many  kinds.  In 
the  first  place  its  mediaeval  centre  consists  of  the 
finest  Old  Square  in  Europe  (except  those  of  Ven- 
ice and  Florence)  ;  in  which  are  situated  the  glo- 
rious Hotel-de-Ville  and  the  gorgeous  Maison  du 
Roi,  two  of  the  finest  secular  buildings  in  the 
world  ;  while  the  rest  of  the  Place  consists  entirely 
of  handsome  Renaissance  guild-halls.  This  square 
alone  gives  Brussels  a  far  higher  rank  than  that  of 
"  a  little  Paris ; "  there  is  nothing  in  Paris  to  be 
named  in  the  same  day  with  it.  Then,  again, 
there  is  the  noble  Cathedral  of  the  local  patroness, 
Ste.  Gudule;  her  image,  carrying  the  lantern 
which  the  devil  tried  to  blow  out,  recurs  in  every 
part  of  it,  as  does  also  that  of  the  local  patron,  St. 
Michael  the  Archangel.  You  will  find  him,  if  you 
look  for  him,  on  the  very  lamp-posts.  It  is  this 
continuity  of  idea  between  the  Middle  Ages  and 
modern  times  that  gives  half  the  charm  to  Europe ; 
and  it  is  for  the  sake  of  calling  attention  to  these 
persistent  features,  of  suggesting  the  reasons  and 
explanations  of  things,  that  I  have  been  moved  to 
plan  my  series  of  Historic  Guide-books. 

Brussels  is  also  the  place  in  which  to  form  a 


132  The  European  Tour 

connected  idea  of  Flemish  art.  At  Bruges  and 
Ghent  you  saw  its  magnificent  beginnings  in  the 
Van  Eycks  and  Memhng ;  at  Brussels  you  make 
further  acquaintance  with  these  same  early  artists, 
as  well  as  with  their  near  contemporaries  Dierick 
Bouts  and  Roger  van  der  Weyden ;  but  you  also 
follow  out  the  development  of  the  intermediate 
Flemish  school,  in  Quentin  Matsys,  Gossart,  and 
other  transitional  masters ;  you  watch  the  intro- 
duction of  a  new  style  derived  from  the  Italian 
Renaissance ;  and  you  are  enabled  to  follow  the 
subsequent  rise  of  Rubens  and  his  school ;  as  well 
as  the  first  hints  of  Vandyck,  Rembrandt,  and  the 
later  Dutch  masters.  You  will  here  be  in  a  posi- 
tion to  guess  why  I  advised  you  first  to  see  Bruges 
and  Ghent.  You  were  able  there  to  concentrate 
your  attention  on  the  beautiful  works  of  the  early 
school;  by  the  time  you  reach  Brussels,  these  will 
have  become  so  far  familiar  to  you  that  you  will  be 
fitted  intelligently  to  trace  the  further  development 
of  Flemish  art  and  of  its  Dutch  offshoot.  But  if 
you  were  first  to  attack  the  whole  mingled  mass  of 
early  and  transitional  work,  as  you  see  it  set  to- 
gether, somewhat  pell-mell,  in  the  Hall  of  the  Old 
Flemish  Masters  at  the  Brussels  Museum  — ;  still 
more  if  you  were  to  begin  with  the  suite  of  rooms 
containing  the  Rubenscs  and  the  Vandycks,  —  as 


Belgium  and  Holland  133 

most  tourists  do,  —  you  could  never  get  anything 
but  a  confused  and  phantasmagoric  idea  of  the  art 
of  the  Low  Countries.  You  would  understand 
none  of  it.  Begin  with  what  is  simplest,  easiest, 
and  earliest ;  proceed  to  what  is  later,  more  com- 
plex, and  more  varied. 

A  stay  of  about  a  week  will  suffice  to  give  you 
a  good  idea  of  Brussels.  I  have  sketched  in  my 
Guide  a  plan  of  action. 

Antwerp  is  practically  a  town  of  much  later 
origin  than  the  other  three.  Though  in  one  sense 
old,  its  importance  dates  only  from  the  fifteenth 
and  sixteenth  centuries.  As  the  Zwin  at  Bruges 
silted  up,  and  as  Venice  declined,  Antwerp  rose 
into  commercial  greatness.  More  than  that;  it 
was  the  first  leading  Atlantic  seaport  of  the  more 
extended  traffic.  It  flourished  with  the  military 
greatness  of  Spain,  and  with  the  commercial  im- 
portance of  America  and  the  Indies.  Hence  its 
art  belongs  almost  entirely  to  the  later  period, 
beginning  with  Quentin  Matsys,  who  died  in 
153 1,  and  culminating  with  Rubens,  whose  life 
as  an  artist  nearly  coincides  with  the  first  half  of 
the  seventeenth  century.  In  one  word,  it  is  a 
Renaissance  city.  True,  the  modern  museum,  one 
of  the  finest  in  the  world,  contains  several  noble 
works  of  earlier    painters  j  but   these   have    been 


1 34  The  European  Tour 

mainly  brought  hither  in  recent  years,  and  none  of 
them  have  any  original  connection  with  Antwerp. 
On  every  account,  therefore,  the  town  ought  to 
be  visited  last  of  the  Belgian  cities  ;  it  closes  a 
chapter  in  the  national  development. 

Briefly  put,  Antwerp  is  the  city  of  Rubens ;  and 
Rubens  is  now  a  far  less  interesting  figure  than  he 
was  to  the  generation  which  cared  only  for 
Renaissance  art,  ignoring  Fra  Angelico,  Botticelli, 
Van  Eyck,  and  Memling.  A  visit  of  three  or  four 
days  ought  therefore  to  suffice  for  the  hasty 
traveller ;  those  who  have  more  time  to  spend 
will  find  a  week  amply  sufficient.  The  Cathe- 
dral has  excellent  points,  but  it  has  been  much 
overrated ;  it  contains  fine  pictures,  but  not  so 
fine  now  as  they  were  thought  thirty  years  ago. 
Recollect  that  taste  at  present  is  going  back  to  the 
fountain-heads,  and  that  Roger  van  der  Weyden 
and  Gerard  David  are  beginning  to  assume  the 
place  once  usurped  by  later   painters. 

As  to  the  Antwerp  Museum^  it  is  full  of  fine 
works,  and  deserves  long  and  close  attention. 
Besides  its  admirable  early  masterpieces,  including 
a  lovely  and  touching  Van  der  Weyden,  it  is  es- 
pecially important  for  the  study  of  Rubens,  whose 
chronological  development  can  nowhere  else  be 
followed  to  so  great  advantage.     You  will  find  him 


Belgium  and  Holland  135 

a  different  painter  here  (and  at  Munich)  froin  the 
hasty  coverer  of  sprawling  canvases  whose  ex- 
uberant dames  you  learned  rather  to  dislike  in 
Paris.  With  all  his  faults,  all  his  fly-away  seven- 
teenth-century mannerisms  and  allegories,  you  will 
see  Rubens  in  this  gallery  as  a  grand  seigneur 
of  art,  dispensing  colour  with  princely  magnifi- 
cence, and  lavish  in  his  ostentation  of  artistic 
opulence. 

Then  there  is  the  Plantin-Moretus  Museum^ 
belonging  to  a  famous  family  of  early  printers, 
which  nobody  should  miss,  and  charmingly  in- 
stalled in  its  own  sixteenth-century  palace.  These 
and  many  other  sights  make  Antwerp  rank  fourth 
in  interest  among  Belgian  towns  —  a  long  way 
behind  Bruges  and  Brussels,  it  is  true,  but  still 
high  in  the  scale  of  European  art-cities. 

Three  lesser  towns  also  deserve  a  visit  from 
those  who  can  spare  time.  Tpres  has  a  mag- 
nificent Cloth  Hall,  and  was  a  mighty  manu- 
facturing city  in  the  fourteenth  century ;  it  can 
best  be  reached  from  Bruges  or  Ghent.  Louvain 
is  within  half  an  hour's  rail  from  Brussels  ;  it  has 
a  noble  Hotel-de-Ville  and  a  good  church,  with 
some  of  Dierick  Bouts's  masterpieces.  MalineSy 
with  its  splendid  cathedral  and  nice  old-world  air, 
may  best  be  seen  on  your  way    from   Brussels  to 


136  The  European  Tour 

Antwerp.  Indeed,  that  is  the  most  charming 
point  about  Belgium  and  Holland ;  the  objects  of 
interest  lie  so  close  together  that  you  can  spend  the 
day  in  sight-seeing,  and  proceed  by  train  —  never 
exceeding  an  hour's  journey  —  to  the  next  town 
in  the  evening. 

After  Belgium,  Holland  falls  flat.  It  has  little 
early  interest,  and  depends  entirely  for  its  effect 
upon  seventeenth- century  architecture  and  paint- 
ing. You  can  skip  Rotterdam ;  it  is  scarcely 
worth  a  visit,  unless  you  have  plenty  of  time,  and 
are  a  sworn  admirer  of  the  minor  Dutch  painters. 
But  you  must  stop  a  few  days  at  the  Hague^  where 
costume,  character,  old  brick  houses,  and  quaint 
streets  and  palaces  are  all  in  their  way  delightful. 
The  royal  Picture  Gallery  is  also  the  second  col- 
lection in  the  world  for  the  native  Dutch  school ; 
it  is  rich  in  Rembrandts  and  Paul  Potters,  and  you 
will  probably  learn  in  it  for  the  first  time  to  ap- 
preciate the  merits  of  Jan  Steen,  Gerard  Dow, 
Terburg,  Hondekoeter,  the  Ruysdaels,  and  Van  der 
Heist.  Rembrandt's  School  of  Anatomy  and  Paul 
Potter's  Bull  are  the  most  famous  pictures  of  the 
collection ;  but  I  say  little  of  Dutch  art  because  it 
is  essentially  modern  ;  the  spectator  can  see  its 
meaning  at  sight  for  himself;  it  does  not  require 
explanation  like  the   mediaeval  works  of  Belgium 


Belgium  and  Holland  137 

and  Italy.  For  the  same  reason  I  do  not  at 
present  contemplate  adding  a  Historical  Guide  to 
Holland  to  my  series. 

Pleasant  excursions  can  be  made  from  the  Hague 
to  the  watering-place  of  Scheveningen,  where  Dutch 
costume  is  seen  at  its  best,  and  to  Delft,  which  is 
a  capital  example  of  a  comparatively  unspoilt  old 
Dutch  town. 

Between  the  Hague  and  Amsterdam  be  sure  you 
stop    at    Leydeti     and   Haarlem.     The    first    is    a 
picturesque  town,  with  more  medievalism  surviv- 
ing in  it  than  is  usual  in  Holland ;  the  second  is 
both  quaint  in  itself  and  also  indispensable  for  the 
study  of  Frans  Hals,  most    of   whose    admirable 
portraits    and  portrait-pieces    are    here    preserved. 
A   day  at   each  will   serve  to  show  you   most  of 
what  is  to  be  seen  j  but  of  course  a  much  longer 
stay  is  needed  for  anything  like  a  proper  study  of 
the  buildings  and  the  works  of  art   contained  in 
them. 

The  interest  of  Amsterdam  is  almost  confined  to 
its  comprehensive  Museum,  though  the  town  itself 
is  curious  in  its  way  as  a  sort  of  dull  and  brick- 
built  Northern  Venice.  The  Museum  is  a  hotch- 
potch of  all  arts  and  antiquities ;  but  the  only 
thing  that  need  long  detain  the  stranger  's  its 
splendid  Picture  Gallery,  undoubtedly  the  noblest 


138  The  European  Tour 

collection  of  Dutch  paintings  in  the  world.  The 
Rembrandts  are  unrivalled  ;  and  the  Van  der  Heists 
run  them  closer  than  most  critics  are  ready  to 
admit. 

Those  who  mean  to  spend  much  time  in  Europe 
will  find  many  other  things  in  Holland  to  interest 
them ;  such  as  the  curious  "  dead  cities "  of  the 
Zuider  Zee,  and  the  ancient  university  town  of 
Utrecht.  More  accessible  from  Amsterdam  are 
the  island  of  Mar  ken  in  the  Zuider  Zee,  which  of 
late  years  has  become  (perhaps  too  much)  a  place 
of  pilgrimage  for  tourists,  because  of  its  rather 
theatrical  and  studied  quaintness ;  and  Goudoy 
whose  ancient  stained  glass  forms  the  best  exist- 
ing specimen  of  old  Dutch  art  in  that  material. 
But  on  the  whole,  I  do  not  advise  the  six-monthly 
visitor  to  spend  too  large  a  proportion  of  his  time 
in  Holland.  It  is  so  purely  modern.  If  he  desires 
to  make  acquaintance  with  the  great  Dutch 
painters,  a  day  or  two  at  the  Hague,  Haarlem,  and 
Amsterdam  will  amply  suffice  for  a  first  impres- 
sion ;  the  rest  is  merely  odd  with  a  seventeenth- 
century  oddity  and  picturesqueness  ;  I  regard  it  as 
a  dangerous  Will-o*-the-wisp  to  lead  the  aspirant 
astray  from  what  is  really  more  important  in 
Germany  and  Italy.  Hurry  on  to  the  South,  and 
then  return  if  you  choose.     After  you  have  learnt 


Belgium  and  Holland  139 

what  artistic  wealth  exists  in  Siena  and  Perugia  — 
I  do  not  say  in  Florence,  Rome,  and  Venice  —you 
can  judge  better  for  yourself  whether  it  is  worth 
your  while  to  wpste  time  on  Alkmaar,  Helder,  or 
Groningen. 


CHAPTER    IX 

THE    RHINELAND 

^TT^HE  leisurely  tourist,  proceeding  to  Italy  from 
•*•  Belgium  or  Holland,  will  find  a  stay  of  a 
week  or  two  among  the  towns  of  the  Rhineland 
both  instructive  and  agreeable.  It  is  the  indispen- 
sable introduction  to  a  German  tour. 

For  the  Rhineland  is  histcric  Germany.  Along 
that  great  water-way  civilisation  first  penetrated  in 
Roman  times,  and  most  of  the  existing  towns  of 
the  chief  importance  show  traces  of  having  been 
formerly  Roman  stations.  It  is  true  one  might 
say  the  same  thing  about  London,  York,  and  Lin- 
coln, about  Paris,  Lyons,  and  Marseilles  ;  and 
indeed  the  Roman  remains  of  Southern  France  are 
far  finer  in  some  ways  than  any  to  be  seen  in  any 
part  of  Germany.  Treves  (or  Trier)  itself  is  but 
a  poor  thing  compared  with  Nimes,  Orange,  ^nJ 
Aries.  They  were  populous  cities  :  it  was  an 
outlying  local  centre.  Yet  it  is  important  to  bear 
in  mind  the  fact  ^.hat  ir  the  Rhineland  at  last  we 
stand  in  the  midst  of  a  country  once  thoroughly 


The  Rhineland  141 

Romanised  ;  a  country  whence  the  intrusive  bar- 
barian never  wholly  ousted  the  lingering  relics  of 
Roman  culture,  as  he  did  in  England  ;  a  country 
which  when  civilisation  began  to  spread  northward 
once  more  became  the  chief  seat  of  Charlemagne's 
great  West-European  Empire.  All  that  is  oldest 
and  best  worth  seeing  for  its  native  art  in  the 
region  we  now  call  Germany  (save  only  Nurem- 
berg) is  to  be  found  in  and  around  the  Rhineland 
—  the  noblest  cathedrals,  the  finest  churches,  the 
thickest  clustered  castles,  the  most  exquisite  paint- 
ings. This  alone  is  medics'ual  Germany.  From  it 
as  a  centre  civilisation  spread  slowly  with  tentativs 
steps  to  the  surrounding  uplands  and  to  the  half 
Slavonic  border.  Prussia  and  Saxony  are  late- 
comers in  the  comity  of  European  nations ;  the 
Rhineland  alone  is  the  real  and  original  civilised 
Germany. 

Here  again,  therefore,  I  must  enter  a  protest 
against  the  serious  mistake  of  making  first  for  Ber- 
lin, Dresden,  and  Munich.  These  are  not  in  any 
true  sense  Germany.  Berlin  is  the  artificial  and 
complex  capital  of  a  brand-new  modern  Empire, 
built  on  soil  which  is  hardly  German  save  by  adop- 
tion, and  inhabited  by  a  mixed  race  nearly  half  of 
whom  are  more  Slav  than  Teuton.  It  has  little 
of  history,  little  of  antiquity,  belonging  to  its  own 


142  The  European  Tour 

spot,  truly  local  and  native.  Of  late  years,  it  is 
true,  it  has  acquired  many  works  of  art  of  impor- 
tance ;  but  these  are  chiefly  foreign,  modern,  or  at 
least  unconnected  in  origin  and  history  with  Berlin 
itself.  The  fact  is,  whatever  interest  the  town  pos- 
sesses is  more  like  that  of  an  American  city,  with 
which  you  are  already  familiar,  than  that  of  an  an- 
cient European  metropolis.  Leave  aside  such  places 
for  the  present  at  least,  and  concentrate  yourself 
on  what  is  most  European,  most  original,  most 
typical,  —  what  is  oldest  in  itself,  and  therefore  to 
you  newest.  After  seeing  Italy,  you  can,  if  time 
remains  to  you,  turn  back  to  the  recent  collections 
of  Berlin. 

Dresden^  again,  is  a  rather  modern  town,  with 
splendid  art-collections,  a  great  reputation  as  a 
(cheap)  musical  centre,  and  a  somewhat  greater 
air  of  antiquity  than  Berlin ;  but  its  best  works  of 
art  are  still  Italian  j  and  though  you  ought  certainly 
to  see  it,  if  possible,  before  you  return  to  America, 
I  strongly  advise  you  to  put  off  visiting  it  till 
after  you  have  explored  Italy.  For  in  Italy  you 
will  have  learned  where  to  place  all  its  chief  treas- 
ures; you  will  have  discovered  the  historical 
sequence  of  the  artists  and  their  works,  and  you 
will  appreciate  Dresden  ten  thousand  times  better 
on  your  return  than  if  you  visit  it  on  your  way 


The  Rhineland  143 

South.  Much  the  same  thing  is  true  of  Munich^ 
which  you  should  also  see,  but  after  Italy.  In  one 
word,  the  interest  of  these  two  great  art-towns  of 
Germany  is  not  German  but  cosmopolitan ;  the 
interest  of  the  Rhineland  is  local  and  historical. 
Rome  and  Florence  hold  the  keys  of  Dresden  and 
Munich ;  Cologne  and  Mayence  hold  their  own 
keys,  which  are  the  keys  of  Germany. 

The  Rhineland^  then,  is  the  beginning  of  Ger- 
many, the  centre  of  Germany,  the  core  of  Germany, 
the  historical  Germany.  It  is  the  land  of  Charle- 
magne ;  and  Charlemagne  lies  at  the  very  root  of  all 
West-European  culture.  But  you  may  say,  "If 
so,  why  did  you  not  advise  us,  in  accordance  with 
your  usual  evolutionary  idea,  to  visit  the  Rhine- 
land  first,  before  Belgium  and  Holland,  which 
cl-arly  derive  their  prime  impetus  from  it  ?  '* 
Well,  that  is  my  wisdom  !  Of  course,  if  you  were 
to  push  this  evolutionary  principle  to  its  extreme, 
you  would  have  to  begin  with  the  Greeks  and 
Romans ;  or,  if  you  want  to  be  more  thorough,  with 
the  Assyrians  and  Egyptians ;  or,  if  you  insist  on 
being  quite  broadly  anthropological,  with  the  palaeo- 
lithic and  neolithic  savages.  But  thoroughness  such 
as  this  is  practically  impossible ;  and  what  is  more, 
it  is  undesirable.  You  will  find  it  best  in  practice  to 
begin  with  what  is  nearest  to  you  and  to  your  own 


144  'r^^  European  Tour 

civilisation,  —  France  and  England;  then  go  back 
to  the  Low  Countries ;  and  from  the  Low  Coun- 
tries proceed  to  the  Rhineland,  and  so  on  Rome- 
wards.  Each  country,  as  you  come  to  it,  teaches 
you  something,  and  on  the  whole  your  progress  is 
backward,  from  the  known  to  the  unknown ;  I 
only  plead  that  in  each  department  you  ought  to 
wa/k  systematically,  England  and  France  showed 
yon  the  transition  from  the  mediaeval  to  the 
modern ;  Belgium  showed  you  the  mediaeval  in  full 
blast ;  the  Rhineland  takes  you  back  to  the  roots 
of  the  Middle  Ages  in  the  system  of  Charlemagne. 
Each  step  back  helps  to  explain  the  steps  you  have 
already  examined ;  but  as  you  must  begin  some- 
where, it  is  best  to  begin  near  your  own  civilisation. 
You  thus  ge";  in  the  end  a  more  connected  picture. 
On  your  way  to  the  Rhine  from  Belgium  or 
Holland,  you  must  certainly  stop  at  Jix-ia-Chapelle^ 
or  Aachen,  which  derives  its  first  name  of  Aix 
from  the  Roman  Aquae,  "  the  Baths "  or  "  the 
Waters,**  and  its  second  of  "  la-Chapelle  **  from 
the  dome  or  mausoleum  which  Charlemagne 
erected  to  contain  his  own  body.  Here  you  can 
feel  you  are  beginning  to  get  back  to  the  real 
roots  of  things.  Aix  is  the  ancient  capital  of  the 
Teutonic  Empire.  Its  origin  goes  back  to  the 
days    of    old   Rome.     When    the    Romans    held 


The  Rhineland  145 

the  Rhineland,  with  their  colony  at  Cologne,  they 
called  this  place  Aquisgranum,  that  is  to  say,  "the 
Mineral  Waters,"  and  resorted  to  it  as  a  cure 
much  as  visitors  do  to  the  present  day.  When 
Charlemagne  conquered  and  reunited  the  greater 
part  of  the  Western  Empire  in  his  new  Prankish 
realm,  he  made  this  his  principal  city  north  of  the 
Alps,  and  erected  in  it  the  nucleus  of  the  existing 
cathedral,  one  of  the  most  historical  buildings  in 
modern  Germany.  Do  not  on  any  account  neg- 
lect to  see  it.  But  the  mausoleum  which  he 
thus  built  for  his  own  remains,  with  fragments 
ransacked  from  older  Roman  towns,  is  an  excel- 
lent example  of  the  general  principle  I  have  just 
laid  down ;  for  you  can  only  really  understand 
the  tomb  of  Charlemagne  after  you  have  seen 
Ravenna. 

You  must  bear  in  mind  that  with  the  setting  in 
of  the  decadence  at  Rome,  Ravenna  rose  to  be  prac- 
tically the  chief  city  of  Italy,  and  the  seat  of  the 
fleet,  which  then  almost  replaced  the  army  as  a 
means  of  national  protection.  It  was  the  capital 
of  Honorius  and  the  late  Western  Emperors  of  the 
last  old  Roman  line ;  later  still  it  was  the  capital 
of  the  Gothic  kingdom  of  Italy,  under  Theodoric 
and  his  successors  ;  and  when  the  Byzantine 
emperors    reconquered    for  a  while   the    Adriatic 

10 


146  The  European  Tour 

provinces,  it  became  the  seat  of  Justinian  and  the 
Exarchs  from  Constantinople.  Naturally  enough, 
therefore,  when  Charlemagne  began  to  re-establish 
the  Western  Empire,  it  was  to  the  still  splendid 
buildings  of  Ravenna,  glowing  even  now  with  gor- 
geous wealth  of  mosaics,  that  he  looked  first  for 
models.  When  he  decided  to  erect  for  himself  a 
fitting  mausoleum  at  his  capital  of  Aix,  it  was  the 
noble  Church  of  San  Vitak  at  Ravenna  that  he  un- 
dertook to  copy.  This  church  itself  was  probably 
the  court  chapel  of  the  Palace  at  Ravenna ;  it  still 
stands,  and  is  an  octagon  of  great  beauty,  built  in 
526  by  Archbishop  Ecclesius,  under  the  superin- 
tendence of  Julius  Argentarius,  on  the  very  spot 
where  St.  Vitalis,  the  local  saint  to  whom  it  is  ded- 
icated, suffered  martyrdom.  It  was  consecrated  in 
547  by  St.  Maximian,  and  its  glorious  mosaics  still 
present  us  the  figures  of  that  holy  man  himself,  as 
well  as  of  Justinian  and  Theodora,  his  patrons  and 
sovereigns.  On  this  fashionable  model,  then,  the 
last  masterpiece  of  decadent  Roman  art,  Charle- 
magne built  his  own  mausoleum,  an  imposing 
octagon  of  the  Byzantine  style,  and  practically  the 
oldest  modern  building  of  importance  in  Germany. 
It  shows  us  the  transition  from  the  older  to  the 
newer  Roman  Empire. 

Charlemagne,  however,  as  later  ages  knew  him. 


The  Rhineland  147 

was  not  merely  a  great  emperor  and  a  wise  ad- 
ministrator ;  he  was  also  a  canonised  saint.  He 
had  been  buried  in  his  own  mausoleum,  built  in 
part  by  Italian  workmen  j  but  being  a  saint,  he 
was  naturally  not  allowed  to  rest  there  forever. 
"  Translation  "  is  one  of  the  penalties  of  saintship. 
Three  centuries  and  a  half  after  his  death,  the 
Emperor  Otho  III.  opened  the  tomb  to  inspect  the 
remains  ;  and  a  century  and  a  half  later  Frederick 
Barbarossa  transferred  the  body  to  a  splendid  antique 
sarcophagus,  still  preserved  in  the  church,  though 
now  empty.  The  slabs  on  which  the  holy  form 
had  previously  lain  were  then  made  into  a  corona- 
tion chair  for  the  emperors.  In  121 5  Frederick 
II.  transferred  the  great  emperor's  remains  to  a 
reliquary  of  gold  and  silver,  kept  at  present  in  the 
Cathedral  treasury,  where  they  receive  even  now 
the  homage  of  the  faithful.  All  round  later  Em- 
perors share  the  repose  of  their  canonised  predeces- 
sor ;  and  from  the  death  of  Charlemagne  in  814 
till  the  accession  of  Ferdinand  I.  in  1 531,  all  the 
sovereigns  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire  were  duly 
crowned  at  Aix-la-Chapelle. 

You  will  thus  see  how  historically  important  is 
this  ancient  city,  further  details  concerning  which 
will  appear  in  my  Historical  Guide  to  the 
Rhine,  now  in  course  of  preparation. 


148  The  European  Tour 

The  existing  Cathedral  of  A'lx-la-Chapelle^  indeed, 
is  a  brief  epitome  of  the  history  of  Germany.  Its 
nucleus  consists  of  the  Byzantine-Romanesque 
octagon  built  by  Charlemagne,  much  altered  in  the 
twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries :  its  choir  is  a 
beautiful  Gothic  work  of  the  fourteenth  and  fif- 
teenth centuries  ;  its  fantastic  roof  is  of  the  seven- 
teenth century.  The  contents  are  equally  varied 
with  the  fabric  itself:  a  brazen  she-wolf  of  the 
Roman  period  ;  a  pine-cone  of  the  tenth  century  ; 
columns  of  various  ages,  brought  hither  from  Rome, 
Treves,  and  Ravenna ;  ancient  sarcophagi  and 
mediaeval  reliquaries,  —  in  short,  a  stratified  collec- 
tion of  the  antiquities  of  the  Rhineland.  For  all 
these  reasons,  you  must  not  omit  Aix-la-Chapelle  ; 
it  is  the  proper  introduction  to  the  study  of  modern 
European  art  and  history  —  the  first  chapter  of 
Modern  Europe. 

Cologne  is  the  next  stage,  and  it  deserves  to  be 
visited  on  many  accounts,  but  chiefly  as  the  cradle 
of  German  painting. 

Do  not  hurry  over  Cologne ;  it  is  a  town  with 
many  claims  on  your  close  attention.  It  is  rich 
in  antiquities,  rich  in  churches,  rich  in  pictures ; 
don't  suppose  (as  most  people  do)  that  when  you 
have  just  visited  the  Cathedral  once  you  have 
"  done  Cologne  j  "   on   the  contrary,  this  ancient 


The  Rhineland  149 

and  artistic  town  needs  to  be  studied  far  more 
thoroughly  than  anything  you  have  yet  seen,  save 
Brussels,  Bruges,  and  Paris. 

Not  that  I  mean  to  slight  the  Cathedral ;  it  is 
the  natural  centre  of  mediaeval  Cologne,  and  round 
it  cluster  the  art  and  the  handicraft  of  the  Rhine- 
land.  But  you  will  make  a  great  mistake  if  you 
regard  it  merely  as  a  great  church  and  the  seat  of 
an  archbishop.  You  must  read  yourself  quite 
otherwise  into  mediaeval  religion  if  you  wish  really 
to  understand  the  Middle  Ages.  Cologne  Cathedral 
is,  above  all  things,  the  Shrine  of  the  Three  Kings ; 
and  the  Three  Kings  were  the  chief  objects  of 
reverence  in  all  the  Rhineland  before  the  Reforma- 
tion revolutionised  thought  on  these  subjects  almost 
as  much  for  Catholics  as  for  Protestants.  To  go 
to  Cologne  was  to  make  a  pilgrimage  to  the  Shrine 
of  the  Magi ;  and  it  was  to  glorify  that  shrine  that 
most  of  the  works  of  art  the  town  contains  were 
originally  fashioned. 

The  Magi  who  visited  Christ  in  his  infancy  at 
Bethlehem  were  early  described  as  Kings,  and  made 
three  in  number,  in  accordance  with  a  supposed 
prophetic  utterance  in  the  seventy-second  Psalm  ; 
they  are  already  represented  in  royal  barbaric  garb, 
and  given  their  mediaeval  names  of  Caspar,  Melchior, 
and  Balthasar  in  a  mosaic  of  Theodoric  the  Goth 


150  The  European  Tour 

at  Ravenna.  Their  bones  were  discovered  by  that 
great  unearther  of  relics,  St.  Helena,  the  mother 
of  the  Emperor  Constantine  (who  also  found  the 
True  Cross),  and  carried  by  her  to  Constantinople, 
Thence  they  were  taken  later  to  Milan,  their  stay 
in  that  town  making  the  Adoration  of  the  Magi  a 
favourite  subject  for  art  throughout  the  Lombard 
region.  When  Frederick  Barbarossa  stormed  and 
destroyed  Milan,  ruining  almost  every  ancient 
building  in  the  city,  in  1162,  he  presented  the 
remains  of  the  Three  Kings  to  Archbishop  Reinald 
von  Dassel,  who  took  them  to  Cologne.  There 
the  Archbishop  placed  them  in  the  little  Roman- 
esque cathedral  of  that  period,  long  since  destroyed. 
But  succeeding  Archbishops  felt  that  the  relics 
of  the  Three  Kings  deserved  a  lordlier  setting; 
St.  Engelbert,  in  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  set  on  foot  the  movement  for  a  better 
church;  and  in  1248  Conrad  von  Hochstaden 
laid  the  foundation  stone  of  the  present  sumptuous 
building,  the  largest  and  most  famous  of  Gothic 
edifices. 

Now,  why  do  I  tell  you  all  this  here  at  such 
length  ?  Because,  as  I  go  on  in  this  book,  I  am 
trying  to  put  you  gradually  more  and  more  into 
the  proper  frame  of  mind  for  understanding  and 
appreciating  the  inner  spirit  of  Europe.     If  you 


The  Rhineland  151 

arrive  at  Cologne,  merely  knowing  that  there  is  a 
great  cathedral  there,  and  then  are  told  how  it  was 
begun  at  such-and-such  a  date  by  such-and-such 
an  architect,  and  finished  in  our  own  day  by  the 
Emperor  William,  and  that  it  is  so  many  feet  long, 
and  so  many  high,  and  bears  such-and-such  a  pro- 
portion —  I  do  not  know  what,  and  I  do  not  care  — 
to  St.  Peter's  at  Rome  and  St.  Paul's  in  London, 
well,  you  are  no  nearer  than  you  were  to  under- 
standing and  sympathising  with  this  epic  in  stone, 
this  vast  imaginative  work  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
You  must  consider  it  from  the  point  of  view  of 
the  people  who  built  it.  And  they  built  it  in 
honour  of  Caspar,  Melchior,  and  Balthasar,  the 
three  saints  of  Cologne,  whose  names  men  still 
bear  in  the  valley  of  the  Rhine  far  more  frequently 
than  in  all  the  rest  of  Europe.  And  in  the  chief 
recess  behind  the  High  Altar  of  the  mighty 
minster  they  placed  in  the  seat  of  honour  the  bones 
of  the  ancient  saints  in  the  Chapel  of  the  Three 
Kings ;  where  you  may  see  to  this  day  the  beauti- 
ful gilded  bronze  relief  of  the  Adoration  of  the 
Magi.  And  all  round  lie  Bishops  and  Electors 
and  Queens,  who  desired  that  their  dust  should 
slumber  by  the  sacred  bones  j  amongst  them, 
the  heart  of  Marie  de  Medicis.  And  all  along  the 
Rhine  valley,  where  men  made  pilgrimage  to  the 


152  The  European  Tour 

shrine  at  Cologne  (as  at  Basle  and  elsewhere)  you 
will  find  the  Three  Kings  is  the  commonest  sign 
of  the  ancient  hostelries.  But  the  bones  of  the 
Magi  themselves  are  no  longer  laid  in  the  sump- 
tuous chapel  prepared  to  hold  them  ;  they,  and  the 
gorgeous  golden  Romanesque  reliquary  in  which 
they  were  placed  shortly  after  their  arrival  in 
Cologne,  are  now  preserved  for  safer  keeping  in 
the  Treasury  of  the  Cathedral.  And  those  are  the 
really  important  facts  which  it  behoves  you  to 
know  beforehand  about  the  Dom  at  Cologne,  the 
final  resting-place  of  the  Three  Magi. 

To  the  mediaeval  Parisian,  Paris  was  not  so 
much  the  capital  of  the  French  kings  as  the  home 
of  Ste.  Genevieve  and  the  shrine  of  St.  Denis. 
To  the  mediaeval  Kolner,  Cologne  was  not  so 
much  a  great  trading  city  as  the  shrine  of  the 
Kings  from  the  East  who  went  by  the  guiding  light 
of  the  star  to  Bethlehem. 

But  Cologne  has  other  saints  scarcely  less  im- 
portant, —  St.  Ursula  and  her  11  ^000  virgins  and 
St.  Gereon  and  the  Martyrs  of  the  Theban  Legion. 
Each  has  his  or  her  own  church,  very  interest- 
ing churches  too,  which  you  must  by  no  means 
neglect ;  worth  six  weeks  apiece  of  London  or 
modern  Paris.  Then  there  is  the  famous  Dom- 
bild  in  the  Cathedral,  the  masterpiece  of  Meister 


The  Rhineland  153 

Stephan,  a  large  winged  triptych,  which  combines 
all  three  great  local  cults,  having  in  the  centre  the 
Adoration  of  the  Magi,  and  on  either  side,  St. 
Gereon  with  his  knights,  and  St.  Ursula  with  her 
maidens.  It  is  the  finest  work  of  the  early  Ger- 
man school,  and  it  shows  you  at  a  glance  the  chief 
assemblage  of  worshipful  personages  in  the  Cologne 
of  the  early  fifteenth  century. 

Of  the  other  paintings  in  Cologne  I  will  not 
say  much ;  but  this  I  will  say  :  you  must  stop  long 
enough  to  understand  the  art  of  the  Cologne  Schooly 
which  you  can  best  do  by  visiting  the  Cathedral 
and  the  two  Museums  (Municipal  and  Archiepis- 
copal)  with  the  aid  of  Sir  Martin  Conway's  admi- 
rable little  work  on  "  The  Early  Flemish  Artists 
and  their  Precursors  on  the  Lower  Rhine."  This 
book  you  should  take  with  you  round  Belgium  and 
the  Rhineland,  and  you  will  find  it  an  unfailing 
source  of  interest  and  instruction. 

And  now  I  hope  you  are  beginning  to  perceive 
the  things  which  you  must  bear  in  mind  while  per- 
ambulating Europe. 

A  week  may  be  pleasantly  spent  at  Cologne ;  you 
will  find  it  much  richer  than  you  at  first  anticipate. 
But  by  the  end  of  that  time  you  will  want  to  go  on 
up  the  river  -,  a  charming  trip,  to  be  made  leisurely 
by  steamer. 


154  The  European  Tour 

Don't  rush  the  Rhine  in  a  day.  Loiter  about 
and  see  the  pleasant  drives  in  the  Seven  Moun- 
tains i  the  ruins  of  the  Drachenfels  and  the  many 
quaint  castles  and  old  German  towns  on  the  way 
to  Coblence,  which  is  itself  comparatively  uninter- 
esting. Below  Coblence  comes  the  most  pic- 
turesque and  castle-studded  part  of  the  river  ;  but 
before  you  pass  on  to  it,  I  strongly  advise  you  to 
turn  aside  to  Treves  (or  Trier),  a  few  hours  by  rail, 
where  you  will  first  come  across  Roman  remains 
of  any  importance.  The  town  is  now  a  living 
museum.  Its  great  Roman  gate,  the  Porta  Nigra, 
its  Basilica,  and  its  Roman  Palace  give  it  excep- 
tional interest;  while  its  noble  and  ancient  churches 
of  the  transitional  period  between  the  ancient  and 
the  modern  world  are  beautiful  in  themselves,  and 
rich  in  the  possession  of  the  sacred  heads  of  St. 
Matthew  the  Apostle  and  the  Empress  Helena. 
Do  not  imagine  because  I  say  little  of  Treves  that 
it  is  not  important.  Stretch  a  point  to  visit  it  if 
possible,  and  you  will  feel  you  have  now  got  to  the 
very  bottom  stratum,  the  bed-rock  of  Germany. 

The  Gorge  of  the  Rhine  from  Coblence  to  Bingen 
is  extremely  pretty,  and  crammed  thick  with  castles. 
A  day  or  two  spent  in  exploring  it,  especially  at 
Boppard^  St.  Goar^  Bacharach^  and  Bingen^  will  not 
be  thrown  away.    At  Bingen,  take  train  to  Mainz^ 


The  Rhineland  155 

or  Mayence,  an  interesting  old  town.  Thence 
you  may  proceed  via  Frankfort  or  Darmstadt  or 
Heidelberg  to  Basle.  I  do  not  propose  to  give  you 
any  special  hints  for  this  itinerary.  You  can,  if 
you  like,  see  the  Black  Forest  on  the  way ;  and  I 
have  purposely  omitted  many  interesting  intermedi- 
ate points,  such  as  Speyer  and  Strasbourg.  But  you 
cannot  see  all  Germany  at  once ;  and  my  advice 
to  you  on  a  first  trip  to  Europe  at  least  would  be 
this,  —  see  Aix-la-Chapelle,  Cologne,  the  Rhine  to 
Mainz,  and  Treves,  and  you  will  then  have  seen 
what  is  most  important  for  purposes  of  culture. 
On  a  second  visit  you  can  fill  up  the  gaps ;  and 
even  on  your  first  you  had  better  leave  Munich, 
Dresden,  nay,  Nuremberg  itself  (because  it  fits  in 
with  them  so  well),  till  your  return  from  Italy. 

Italy,  Italy  !  Press  on  to  Italy  !  Till  you  have 
seen  it,  you  can  only  half  understand  what  Europe 
is  driving  at. 


CHAPTER   X 

SWITZERLAND,    ETC. 

"DETWEEN  the  Rhineland  and  Italy  lie  the 
•*-'  Alps ;  and,  one  way  or  another,  you  will  have 
to  get  over  them. 

When  I  say  this,  is  it  necessary  for  me  to  add 
that  I  do  not  desire  to  disparage  Switzerland  ?  To 
us  Europeans,  of  course  (if  I  may  pose  as  Euro- 
pean), it  is,  to  use  a  well-worn  phrase,  the  playground 
of  Europe ;  we  love  its  rich  pastures,  its  dark  green 
pine-woods,  its  brawling  white  torrents,  its  snow- 
clad  peaks,  its  subtle  depths  of  crystal  glacier. 
To  us,  it  is  the  symbol  of  six  weeks'  relaxation  in 
the  afternoon  of  the  year  from  the  smoky  drudgery 
of  London,  the  feverish  excitement  of  Paris,  the 
fierce  whir  of  factory  wheels,  the  dead  atmosphere 
of  the  music-hall.  We  all  love  it,  and  love  it  with 
justice ;  for  it  is  the  most  beautiful  thing  unaided 
nature  has  to  show  us  in  this  beautiful  continent. 
I  could  gush  about  Switzerland  if  I  chose  ;  why, 
its  gentians  alone  are  worth  months  of  Mayfair ; 
but  I  purposely  refrain.     This  is  not  the  place  or 


Switzerland,  Etc.  157 

the  time  for  gushing.  I  have  undertaken  to  guide 
your  steps  aright  through  Europe ;  and  I  must  not 
allow  my  own  private  taste  for  mountains,  flowers, 
waterfalls,  and  earth-sculpture  to  distract  me  now 
from  the  things  that  are  more  excellent  to  the 
American  visitor. 

For  I  recognise  that  to  the    American    tourist 
Switzerland,  beautiful  as  it  is,  is  a  snare  and  a  mis- 
leader.     Once  get  yourself  lost  among  the  depths 
of  those  mountain  meadows  in  May,  and  I  almost 
despair  of  ever  pulling  you  down  to  Florence  and 
Venice.     I  remember  once  how  after  a  spring  in 
North  Italy,  we  went  about  the  time    when   the 
pheasant-eye  narcissus  stars  the  Alpine  fields,  and 
the  globe-flower  gilds  them,  to  Lucerne  and  Lu- 
gano.    I  thought  to  myself,  "  Well,  now  at  least, 
after   Carpaccio  and  Luini,  mer^;   hills  and  snow- 
fields  and  torrents  will  seem  tame  to  us  ! "     But 
when  we   got   upon   the   hill-tops  —  oh,  heavens, 
how  I  repented  that    sudden    blasphemy !       The 
snow  glittered  in  the  sun  ;  the  lakes  lay  spread  in 
sheets  of  blue  below ;  the  air  was  heavy  with  the 
mountain    perfume  of  the  sweet-scented   daphne; 
and  Italy  faded  like  a  dream  behind  us.     We  were 
up  among    God's  mountains,  stretched  on  God's 
flowery  carpet,  and  man's  works  were  as  naught 
in  the  dim  plains  to  southward. 


158  The  European  Tour 

That  was  a  momentary  lapse  into  something 
like  poetry  !  Forgive  me  !  Let  us  return  to  our 
practical  duties  as  guide,  and  eschew  the  gentians. 

Well,  once  at  Basle,  I  take  it  for  granted  the 
tourist  will  wish  to  gain  at  least  a  passing  glimpse  of 
Switzerland.  But  though  Switzerland  is  so  lovely 
that  the  hardest-hearted  man  can  scarcely  dash 
through  it  at  one  burst  by  an  express  train,  I  take 
it  for  granted  also  that  most  American  tourists  will 
merely  regard  it  as  part  of  the  way  to  Italy.  For 
Italy  is  the  goal ;  and  Switzerland  must  be  taken 
as  merely  subsidiary  to  that  prime  intention. 

I  will  therefore  treat  my  Swiss  hints  essentially 
as  hints  for  the  mute  to  Italy.  Diverge  if  you  like 
to  right  or  left  for  the  scenery  and  the  moun- 
tains ;  but  let  the  mam  road  to  Italy  govern  your 
divagations.  If  what  you  want  is  to  see  Swit- 
zerland itself,  well  and  good :  I  approve  your 
decision :  but  —  you  are  not  my  client. 

We  have  arrived  at  Basle,  I  think.  Very  well ; 
let  Basle  itself  wait  for  the  moment  while  we 
pause  to  reflect  on  the  various  modes  of  approaching 
Italy. 

There  is  one  route  which  I  can  unreservedly 
counsel  you  to  reject  —  and  that  is  the  one  most 
frequently  taken,  the  shortest,  quickest,  deadly- 
dullest,  and  least   instructive  of  any :   I  mean  the 


Switzerland,  Etc.  159 

weary  way  from  Paris  to  Turin  by  Dijon  and  the 
Mont  Cents.  From  beginning  to  end,  this  ob- 
jectionable line  chucks  away  (there  is  no  other 
word  for  it)  all  the  interest  and  beauty  and  delight 
of  the  trip.  -  It  substitutes  a  dreary  weary  railway 
journey  for  what  ought  to  be  one  of  the  treats  of 
existence.  You  should  approach  Italy  joyously, 
reverently.  If  you  take  the  Mont  Cenis  route, 
you  will  approach  it  dusty,  cross,  and  tired. 
Travellers  by  this  line  —  the  Paris,  Lyon,  Medi- 
terranee  —  are  hurried  first  through  the  dismal 
plain  of  Central  and  Eastern  France,  which  is  a 
weariness  to  the  flesh,  to  Dijon  and  the  frontier. 
The  whole  of  this  great  plain,  which  alone  they 
pass  through  by  daylight,  is  ghastly  in  its  ugliness ; 
unenclosed  fields,  threaded  by  long  white  poplar- 
bordered  roads:  the  only  redeeming  point  is  to 
be  found  in  the  outliers  of  the  Jura.  After  a  long 
and  tedious  day,  cooped  up  in  a  box  with  nine 
other  sufferers,  you  reach  the  Alps  —  by  night. 
The  route  across  them,  by  the  Mont  Cenis,  is  by 
far  the  least  beautiful  of  all  the  great  Alpine  lines  : 
it  manages  to  show  you  as  little  as  possible  of  the 
glories  of  the  mountains,  even  by  day ;  and  you 
can  only  arrange  to  cross  by  day  by  breaking  the 
journey  somewhere  most  inconveniently.  Then 
you  descend  on  the  other  side  to  Turin,  which  is 


i6o  The  European  Tour 

the  barest,  squarest,  least  characteristic  of  Italian 
cities,  and  by  far  the  least  interesting.  In  one 
word,  you  approach  Italy  by  this  route  through  the 
back  door.  Unless  you  are  pressed  for  time,  or 
have  arranged  the  rest  of  your  tour  so  as  to  compel 
this  undesirable  mode  of  entry,  I  would  say  to 
you  most  emphatically,  avoid  the  Mont  Cenis. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  you  must  go  that  way 
(and  many  rush  headlong  to  their  own  destruc- 
tion), I  will  add,  by  all  means  stop  en  route  at  Dijon. 
It  is  an  interesting  town,  rather  Burgundian  than 
pure  French ;  and  if  you  have  already  visited  the 
Low  Countries,  it  will  be  full  of  instruction  for 
you.  Then  try  to  get  a  day  train  on  over  the 
mountains.  The  French  side  of  the  line  is  com- 
paratively poor,  and  no  part  of  the  route  can  hold 
a  candle  to  the  St.  Gotthard ;  but  the  descent  on 
the  Italian  side  is  through  the  beautiful  valley  of 
Susa,  which  ought  to  be  seen,  if  possible,  by  day- 
light. A  day  or  two  may  be  profitably  spent  at 
Turin  in  examining  the  buildings  and  the  excellent 
picture  gallery  ;  only,  remember  that  this  is  not 
the  real  Italy,  this  is  merely  Piedmont;  and  the 
collection  is  a  scratch  one,  not  truly  local,  and 
owing  most  of  its  value,  indeed,  to  northern  pic- 
tures. You  will  not  have  bought  this  book  in 
vain    if    it    only    dissuades    you    from    the    very 


Switzerland,  Etc.  i6i 

false  step  of  entering  Italy  first  by  way  of 
Turin. 

The  second  of  the  great  routes  to  Italy,  and  the 
one  to  be  on  all  accounts  recommended^  for  comfort, 
for  beauty  of  scenery,  and  for  historic  interest,  is 
undoubtedly  the  St.  Gotthard.  This  line  is  in  itself 
the  most  beautiful  bit  of  rail  in  Europe;  and  it 
wholly  beguiles  the  toil  of  the  journey  by  the  love- 
liness of  its  scenery.  You  forget  you  are  travel- 
ling in  the  delight  of  looking  out  of  the  broad 
plate-glass  windows  at  the  green  cataracts  of  the 
Reuss  or  the  castled  hillocks  of  the  Ticino.  If 
you  approach  it  by  the  Rhine,  too,  you  will  also 
have  got  rid  of  the  dull  French  plain,  and  had 
nothing  but  pleasant  scenery  from  start  to  finish  — 
the  Belgian  towns,  Aix-la-Chapelle,  Cologne,  the 
turreted  crags  of  the  Rhine  gorge,  the  Black  Forest, 
Switzerland,  the  Italian  Lakes,  and  last  of  all, 
Milan.  This  is  the  ideal  route.  If  possible,  take 
it. 

I  will  describe  the  Gotthard  road  more  fully  in 
the  sequel ;  for  the  present  I  go  on  to  consider  the 
two  remaining  railway  routes  to  Italy.  Both  are 
a  little  out  of  the  way,  but  both  are  scenically 
interesting. 

The  road  by  the  Riviera  is  simply  delightful  in 

autumn,  winter,  and  spring;  but  it  is  emphatically 

II 


1 62  The  European  Tour 

a  way  for  the  leisurely  traveller.  It  takes  two  or 
three  days  at  least  of  somewhat  slow  trains,  with  no 
expresses  at  all  on  the  Italian  portion.  But  it  is 
full  of  interest,  second  only  to  that  of  the  St. 
Gotthard.  You  can  stop  first  at  Dijon^  and  then 
at  Lyons^  which  has  little  of  interest,  j^vignon 
shows  you  the  old  Palace  of  the  Popes,  in  a  won- 
derful land  of  rock  and  dry  soil.  Jrles  is  rich  in 
Roman  remains,  and  has  the  finest  Romanesque 
church  and  cloisters  I  have  ever  seen.  A  little  de- 
tour will  take  you  to  Nimes^  with  the  noblest 
classical  buildings  on  the  far  side  of  the  Alps  ; 
each  of  these  three  is  well  worth  a  visit.  Then 
on  to  Marseilles^  and  so  by  the  French  Riviera  to 
Cannes.^  Nice^  Monaco^  Monte  Carlo,  and  Mentone, 
It  cannot  be  denied  that  this  is  one  of  the  loveliest 
sunny  coasts  in  the  world,  but  it  is  somewhat  de- 
ficient in  works  of  art  and  antiquity.  I  recom- 
mend it  more  for  those  who  wish  to  spend  the 
winter  with  pleasant  surroundings  in  a  moderately 
warm  climate  than  for  the  passing  tourist. 

Continuing  the  same  route  beyond  the  Italian 
frontier  (which  is  passed  at  the  ever-to-be-avoided 
custom-house  of  Ventimiglia),  we  follow  much  the 
same  beautiful  coast  along  the  Riviera  di  Ponente 
as  far  as  Genoa.  It  is  a  succession  of  pictures. 
Bordighera,  San  Remo,  and  Jlassio  are  here  the  chief 


Switzerland,  Etc.  163 

centres  of  interest ;  all  of  them  are  supplied  with 
good  hotels  for  a  lengthy  stay,  and  are  enjoyable 
quarters.  The  whole  of  this  Riviera,  indeed,  is 
extremely  charming,  with  its  deep  blue  bays,  its 
rocky  islets,  its  high  green  olive-clad  or  pine- 
crowned  promontories,  and  its  crowded  white  vil- 
lages gleaming  in  the  sun  among  orange  and  lemon 
groves.  But  it  is  merely  picturesque ;  —  no  more  : 
though  old-world  and  delightful,  it  lacks  the  higher 
humanising  elements  of  European  interest. 

All  these  routes,  —  Mont  Cenis,  Gotthard, 
Riviera,  —  from  one  point  of  view,  unite  at  Genoa^ 
whence  I  will  trace  them  later,  via  the  Riviera  di 
Levante,  to  Rome  or  Florence. 

The  second  of  the  two  less  important  entrances 
into  Italy  is  that  by  the  Brenner.  This  pleasant 
and  attractive  route  takes  off  from  the  Rhine  trip  at 
Mayence  or  Heidelberg,  whence  one  can  proceed 
in  one  long  dull  day  through  squalid  Bavaria  to 
Munich.  There,  in  that  delightful  little  pocket 
capital,  you  may  stop  as  long  as  desirable ;  and 
then  continue  through  the  exquisite  wooded  hills  of 
the  Bavarian  Highlands  into  the  Austrian  Tyrol. 
The  first  stop  may  be  made  at  Innsbruck^  which  is 
not  only  a  splendid  centre  for  Alpine  excursions, 
but  also  a  picturesque  town  with  great  historical 
and  artistic  attractions.     The  Tomb  of  the  Empe- 


164  The  European  Tour 

ror  Maximilian  in  the  principal  church,  guarded  by 
the  Renaissance  bronze  statues  of  his  real  or  myth- 
ical ancestors,  will  be  interesting  to  every  one,  but 
especially  to  those  who  have  seen  Bruges,  Ghent, 
and  Brussels.  The  line  over  the  Brenner  proper, 
though  lacking  the  supreme  interest  of  the  unap- 
proachable St.  Gotthard,  is  still  particularly  beau- 
tiful with  a  quiet  mountainous  beauty,  seldom  rising 
to  distinct  grandeur.  On  the  southern  slope,  but 
still  well  within  Austrian  territory,  a  day  or  two 
may  be  pleasantly  passed  at  Botzen  and  Meran^  the 
latter  of  which  lies  a  little  way  ofF  the  main  route, 
but  is  a  most  characteristic  and  well-preserved 
Tyrolese  city.  The  national  costumes  are  here 
worn  more  commonly  than  elsewhere,  and  the 
castles  around,  especially  the  magnificent  Roman- 
esque Schloss  Tyrol,  are  well  worth  a  visit.  From 
Botzer,  you  can  descend  the  valley  of  the  Etsch  or 
Adige  in  one  day  to  Verona^  where  you  will  find 
yourself  at  once  in  the  very  heart  of  true  Italy. 

But  I  do  not  recommend  the  Brenner  route^  either, 
to  the  visitor  who  approaches  Italy  for  the  first 
time.  It  is  a  little  too  much  out  of  the  way,  and 
it  interpolates  Munich  at  a  wrong  place  in  the  sys- 
tem. Moreover,  Verona  is  quite  too  Italian  to 
form  a  good  first  introduction  to  Italy.  You  must 
be    somewhat    Italianate    already   before  you  can 


Switzerland,  Etc.  165 

appreciate  it.  On  the  whole,  I  advise  you  rather  to 
return  north  from  Italy  by  this  route ^  which  leads  you 
conveniently  by  gradual  stages  to  Munich^  Nurem- 
berg^ and  Dresden.  That,  moreover,  is  the  proper 
historical  order  of  evolution  :  you  will  then  follow 
civilisation  in  the  Eastern  Alps  northward  through 
the  Tyrol  to  mediaeval  and  modern  Germany. 
My  general  advice  to  you,  then,  is  strongly  this 

—  reach  Italy  first  by  the  Rhine  and  the  St,  Gotthard. 
If  you  follow  this  course,  I  feel  sure  you  will  never 
regret  it. 

Before  I  return  to  Basle,  however,  and  set  out 
upon  oui  route  from  that  town  to  Milan,  I  ought 
to  add  that  if  you  have  time  and  money,  one  of 
the  very  best  ways  of  entering  Italy  —  perhaps 
the  best  way  —  is  not  by  any  of  these  four  railway 
routes  at  all,  which  alone  I  have  been  considering, 

—  the  St.  Gotthard,  the  Mont  Cenis,  the  Riviera, 
and  the  Brenner,  —  but  by  one  or  other  of  the 
mountain  passes^  accessible  only  to  diligences,  post- 
cars,  cyclists,  or  pedestrians.  In  this  manner  you 
descend  upon  Italy  naturally,  so  to  speak ;  you 
understand  what  the  Alps  were  to  earlier  ages. 
You  toil  up  the  slope  of  the  mountain  i^nge  on  one 
side,  among  the  trees,  the  fields,  the  crops,  the 
buildings,  the  tongues  of  the  North  j  you  descend 
on    the   other  upon  the    vineyards,  the    chestnut 


1 66  The  European  Tour 

groves,  the  campaniles,  the  churches,  the  painted 
villas  of  the  Italian  region.  Undoubtedly  this  is 
the  most  effective  way  of  breaking  into  Italy ;  you 
see  it  then  as  the  early  conquerors,  the  mediaeval 
pilgrims  saw  it ;  and  the  reality  of  the  great  barrier 
is  far  more  present  to  you  than  if  you  pierce  the 
Alps  by  the  mean  modern  subterfuge  of  a  tunnel. 
But  to  go  over  the  Simplon  or  the  Spliigen^  you 
need  good  legs  or  good  money ;  and  I  do  not 
think  the  class  of  travellers  who  would  contem- 
plate this  best  of  all  entrances  into  Italy  are  likely 
to  need  my  aid  in  the  matter.  I  write  mostly  for 
the  general  public,  who  are  perforce  content  to 
put  up  with  a  seat  in  a  crowded  railway  carriage. 
For  those  who  prefer  and  are  able  to  choose  the 
more  picturesque  carriage  road,  I  will  add  a  word 
or  two  lower  down  in  this  chapter. 

Let  it  be  granted,  then,  as  Euclid  would  say, 
that  the  tourist  has  decided  upon  a  general  plan  of 
campaign  by  which  he  enters  the  Alpine  region  at 
Basle^  and  quits  it  at  Milan;  which  two  towns, 
even  if  he  decide  upon  a  mountain  pass  over  the 
main  range,  are  really  the  best  points  of  departure 
and  destination.  Let  us  follow  him  out  next  from 
one  to  the  other. 

Basle  itself  is  a  good  place  to  stop  at,  both  for 
its  historic  Cathedral,  and  because  it  is  the  town 


Switzerland,  Etc.  167 

where  you  can  most  easily  and  conveniently  study 
at  one  fell  swoop  the  works  of  Hans  Holbein, 
The  Belgian  galleries  will  already  have  led  you  up 
to  Holbein's  place  in  the  evolution  of  art,  and  you 
will  have  seen  his  handicraft  sparingly  represented 
both  there  and  in  the  Louvre  ;  but  you  will  now 
be  able  to  gauge  his  productions  more  fairly,  and 
you  will  afterwards  piece  out  the  idea  you  now  form 
of  him  when  you  find  yourself  later  at  Dresden 
and  Darmstadt.  Build  up  your  knowledge  as  you 
go,  —  that  is  the  great  principle  ;  and  if  you  set  to 
work  in  the  proper  order  (which  it  is  my  task  to 
point  out  to  you),  you  will  build  it  up  far  better 
and  more  securely  than  by  hap-hazard  touring. 

From  Basle  you  can. do  pretty  much  as  you  like 
with  regard  to  a  preliminary  Swiss  tour;  consult 
on  this  point  the  invaluable  Baedeker.  (I  take  it 
for  granted  you  have  him  always  with  you.)  One 
good  way  is  to  go  to  Berne,,  and  then  take  a  short 
tour  through  the  Bernese  Oberland —  Grindelwald^ 
Miirren^  the  Lakes  ofThun  and  Brienz^  and  over  the 
Brunig  to  the  Lake  of  Lucerne^  which  will  give  you 
a  good  glimpse  of  what  Switzerland  means ;  five 
or  six  days  would  suflice  for  a  hurried  glance  at 
this  route,  though  of  course  if  you  want  to  climb 
an  accessible  height  or  two  you  must  take  much 
longer.     (I  need  hardly  say  I  am  not  writing  for 


1 68  The  European  Tour 

mountaineers  ;  they  will  naturally  go  quite  else- 
where for  information.)  Or  you  may  take  a 
wider  sweep  through  the  same  district,  including 
the  Lake  of  Geneva ;  or  you  may  diverge  eastward 
by  Zurich  and  the  Uetliberg.  These  minor  tours 
must  needs  be  left  to  the  taste  and  fancy  (and 
purse)  of  the  individual ;  they  involve  no  principle. 
If,  however,  you  feel  rather  disposed  to  cut 
Switzerland  short,  which  is  hard,  but  your  duty, 
then  the  simplest  thing  is  to  go  direct  from 
Basle  to  Lucerne ;  and  if  you  do  this  by  daylight 
(which  I  recommend),  you  will  see  en  route  one 
of  the  loveliest  bits  of  the  Jura.  Lucerne  will 
doubtless  detain  you  a  few  days,  —  a  charming  old 
German  town,  with  its  ancient  walls,  its  tower  in 
the  water,  its  numerous  turrets,  its  covered  bridges, 
and  its  exquisite  views  over  the  lake  and  moun- 
tains. Oh.,  how  can  one  find  words  for  it !  Even 
if  you  are  hurrying  through,  too,  you  must  at 
least  spare  time  to  go  up  the  Rigi  and  Pilatus.  Both 
command  magnificent  panoramic  views,  —  Pilatus 
the  finer,  —  and  both  can  be  climbed  either  by  the 
human  legs  or,  if  that  be  too  much,  by  a  cog-wheel 
railway.  Endless  other  delightful  excursions  may 
be  made  from  the  same  centre;  I  recommend 
those  to  the  Biirgen stock  and  to  Sonnenberg. 
Steamers  ply  down  all  the  arms  of  the  lake,  and 


Switzerland,  Etc.  169 

afFord  innumerable  opportunities  for  lesser  outings. 
Altogether,  Lucerne  is  a  delicious  place  to  stop  in, 
especially  in  early  spring  or  late  autumn;  in  the 
height  of  the  season,  it  tends  to  become  a  genial 
pandemonium  of  mixed  tourists. 

When  you  have  seen  enough  (or  not  enough)  of 
the  Bernese  Oberland  or  of  the  Lucerne  district, 
you  may  begin  to  think  of  getting  forward  fir  Italy. 
And  here  I  advise  you  not  to  start  by  train  from 
Lucerne ;  take  the  steamer  instead  up  the  lake  to 
Fluelen,  and  there  join  the  St.  Gotihard  line  to 
Goeschenen  and  Airolo.  A  single  day  will  see  you 
through  by  daylight  (if  necessary)  from  Lucerne  to 
Milan.  But  I  rather  charge  you  to  break  it  as 
will  be  described  hereafter.  The  Gotthard  line 
runs  up  the  ravine-like  valley  of  the  Reuss,  a 
foaming  torrent  of  Alpine  glacier  water,  deep  green 
in  the  pools,  breaking  to  white  in  the  cataracts ; 
and  so  up  to  Goeschenen,  where  the  train  enters 
the  great  tunnel.  It  emerges  at  Airolo  in  the 
valley  of  the  Ticino  on  the  southern  sid",  V/t  still 
in  Switzerland.  The  line  itself  is  so  curious  and 
so  wonderfully  engineered  with  its  corkscrew  tun- 
nels that  you  should  follow  it  all  the  way  wih  the 
excellent  maps  and  plans  in  Baedeker.  Though  I 
have  crossed  it  myself  dozens  of  times,  I  watch  it 
each  time  to  this  day  with  never-failing  pleasure. 


170  The  European  Tour 

Indeed,  the  route  is  so  varied  and  so  beautiful,  with 
the  changeful  beauty  of  lake  and  river,  green  alp 
and  snowy  mountain,  hill-top  church  and  moulder- 
ing castle,  —  so  rich  in  contrasts  of  North  and 
South,  of  Italy  and  Germany,  that  however  often 
you  see  it  you  have  no  time  to  get  tired.  This, 
of  all  the  railway  routes,  is  the  right  road  into  Italy. 

Beyond  Airolo,  you  descend  by  various  gorges 
the  valley  of  the  Ticino^  which  brawls  in  cascades, 
now  to  the  right,  now  to  the  left  of  you.  After 
passing  Bellinzona,  with  its  historic  three  towers,  — 
memorials  of  the  days  when  the  three  Forest 
Cantons  enslaved  the  poor  Italian  population  of 
what  is  now  the  Canton  Ticino,  —  you  catch  a 
momentary  glimpse  of  the  Lago  Maggiore.  Thence 
two  or  three  variants  of  the  route  lie  equally  open 
to  you,  which  I  will  describe  more  fully  in  the 
next  chapter  on  the  Italian  Lakes.  Here  I  will 
only  say  that  if  you  are  pressed  for  time,  you  will 
doubtless  hasten  on  to  Lugano  and  Milan  ;  but  if 
you  have  leisure  at  your  disposal,  you  will  more 
likely  decide  to  linger  a  little  among  the  Italian 
Lakes,  as  they  are  always  called,  though  part  of 
them  are  politically  half  Swiss,  half  Italian. 

For  the  moment,  let  us  say,  we  sleep  this  night 
at  Lugano. 

As  to  pedestrians  or  carriage  company^  I  will  only 


Switzerland,  Etc.  171 

add  that  those  who  mean  to  go  over  the  Simplon 
must  diverge  from  this  route  by  the  Lake  of 
Geneva,  and  leave  the  railway  system  at  Brieg  ; 
while  those  who  intend  to  try  the  Splugen  must 
take  off  at  Coire,  regaining  the  rail  at  Chiavenna, 
near  the  Lake  of  Como.  The  first  route  brings 
you  down  most  conveniently  to  Pallanza,  on  the 
Lago  Maggiore  ;  by  the  second,  you  reach  the 
Lake  of  Como  at  Colico,  whence  you  can  proceed 
by  steamer  to  Bellagio  and  Como,  of  both  which 
more  in  my  next  chapter. 

The  advice  most  impressed  upon  the  general 
tourist  as  to  Switzerland  may  be  briefly  summed  up 
thus  —  from  Basle  to  Milan  by  Lucerne  and  the 
Gotthard^  with  a  digression,  if  you  like,  to  the 
Bernese  Oberland. 


CHAPTER   XI 

THE    THRESHOLD    OF    ITALY 

TTALY  !  Italy  !  Here  we  are,  at  last,  in  Italy  ! 
-*•  One  can  hardly  even  write  the  words  without 
a  thrill.  For  when  you  come  to  know  it,  you  will 
feel,  as  I  do,  that  every  day  spent  out  of  Italy  is 
wasted. 

In  Italy,  I  say,  though  we  are  only  at  Lugano^ 
which  is  nominally  and  politically  Switzerland. 
But  the  arcaded  streets,  the  gay  bright  villas,  the 
faces  of  the  people,  the  aspect  of  nature,  above  all, 
the  Luinis  in  the  church  by  the  Lake,  will  show  you 
at  once  that  though  the  soil  may  be  Swiss,  the 
atmosphere  is  Italian. 

And  now  we  must  really  have  a  word  or  two 
together  about  our  route  through  Italy.  We  must 
decide  our  future  plans  while  we  loiter,  lotus-eating, 
among  the  lovely  Italian  Lakes.  On  this  point  I 
will  speak  with  no  uncertain  voice.  One  course 
alone  lies  plain  before  you.  Go  first  to  Milan^  and 
then  straight  to  Florence  ! 

My  reasons  for  this  advice  I  will  detail  to  you  at 
the  end  of  this  chapter  (no :  in  the  next :  but  see 


The  Threshold  of  Italy  173 

later);  meanwhile,  let  us  discuss  our  more  immediate 
plans  -,  and  while  you  are  dallying  about  this  region 
of  lake  and  mountain,  you  will  have  time  to  perpend 
the  counsel  I  give  you.  Read  through  Chapters 
XI.  and  XII.  before  you  go  to  Milan. 

Roughly  speaking,  there  are  three  main  Italian 
Lakes^  Maggiore^  Lugano^  and  Como^  though  there  are 
also  many  minor  sheets,  like  Varese  and  Orta. 
(I  put  Garda  aside  in  a  separate  category.)  On  a 
first  visit  you  may  safely  confine  yourself  to  these 
f^^ree  larger  ones.  Once  more,  let  me  beg  you  not 
to  aim  at  seeing  too  much,  lest  you  carry  away 
with  you  a  phantasmagoric  nightmare  in  place  of 
an  orderly  and  well-remembered  picture. 

The  Gotthard  line^  by  which  you  have  presumably 
descended  on  the  threshold  of  Italy,  boldly  disregards 
the  basins  of  the  three  chief  lakes,  and  cuts  across 
from  one  to  the  other  of  them  with  engineering 
hardihood.  If  you  run  straight  through  from 
Lucerne  to  Milan  (which,  unless  you  are  very  hard 
pressed  for  time,  I  would  dissuade  you  from  doing) 
you  come  down  the  valley  of  the  Ticino  into  the 
Lago  Maggiore ;  but  no  sooner  do  you  get  a  good 
view  of  the  lake  spreau  out  before  you  than  you 
dart  off  at  an  angle  and  begin  to  mount  again 
the  steep  mountain  ridge  that  separates  that  basin 
from   the  Lugano  system.       You  next    reach  the 


174  The  European  Tour 

Lake  of  Lugano^  near  the  town  after  which  it  is 
called,  cross  over  it  on  a  viaduct,  and  then  skirt  it 
agreeably  for  the  rest  of  its  expanse,  leaving  it 
abruptly  at  the  farther  end  for  the  ridge  which 
divides  it  from  the  Lake  of  Como.  This  last  you 
just  spy  near  the  town  of  Como,  and  then  make 
away  incontinently  across  the  hills  and  the  Lombard 
plain  to  Milan. 

But  you  v/ill  probably  want  to  see  something 
more  than  this  passing  glimpse  of  so  beautiful  a 
region.  My  general  advice  to  you,  then,  as  to  the 
management  of  this  part  of  your  tour  would  be  as 
follows.  Do  not  go  through  to  Lugano  at  all,  but 
book  at  Lucerne  for  Locarno  on  the  Lago  Maggiore, 
A  branch  line  of  the  Gotthard  will  carry  you  from 
Bellinzona  (on  the  main  through  route)  across  a 
marshy  plain  to  Locarno.  There  sleep  one  night 
at  least,  and  then  take  the  steamer  down  the  lake 
to  Pallan%a.  This  is  a  charming  trip,  and  as  yo\i 
enter  Italy  meanwhile,  the  custom-house  examina- 
tion takes  place  on  board,  which  saves  much  trouble. 
At  Pallanza  you  can  spend  a  day  or  two,  getting 
accustomed  to  the  outer  form  of  Italy,  —  the  body, 
so  to  speak,  for  the  soul  is  not  here ;  the  soul  is  at 
Florence,  Venice,  Verona,  Siena,  Pisa.  Pleasant 
excursions  by  boat  will  carry  you  to  Baveno^  Stresa, 
the    Borromean    Island:^^    Intra^   and   half  a    dozen 


The  Threshold  of  Italy  175 

charmii.!?^  and  picturesque  little  churches  perched 
high  among  the  mountains.  When  you  have  had 
enough  of  Pallanza,  take  the  steamer  to  Lu'ino  and 
the  rail  to  Ponte  Tresa  on  the  Lake  of  Lugano, 
Thence  a  steamboat  trip  of  exquisite  beauty  will 
land  you  at  last  at  Lugano  town  ;  a  capital  place  for 
a  day  or  two  of  exploration.  In  the  Luinis  of  the 
waterside  church  you  will  catch  your  first  passing 
hint  of  the  soul  of  Italy  ;  but  you  will  not  under- 
stand them  yet;  wait  till  you  have  seen  Milan. 
Then  there  is  the  Monte  San  Salvatore  to  ascend 
(by  rail  if  you  prefer  it)  with  an  admirable  view 
into  the  endless  arms  of  the  blue  lake  beneath ; 
while  a  little  farther  ofF  is  the  Monte  Generoso^ 
perhaps  the  finest  Alpine  prospect  accessible  to  the 
non-climber,  for  this  too  can  be  reached  by  the 
ubiquitous  cog-wheel  railway.  You  will  be  tempted 
to  stay  long  at  Lugano,  no  doubt :  but  you  must 
harden  your  heart  to  resist  the  temptation.  The 
soul  of  Italy  beckons  with  its  spectral  hand  in  the 
background. 

From  Lugano,  take  the  steamer  to  Menaggio  at 
one  of  the  upper  ends  of  the  many-branched  lake, 
and  thence  TAgx2k.g  your  way  by  the  beautiful  little 
mountain  railway,  one  of  the  loveliest  lines  in  the 
world,  across  the  high  ridge  to  Menaggio  on  the 
Lake  of  Como.     (I  am  astonished  at  myself  that  I 


1^6  The  European  Tour 

can  write  of  it  all  with  such  mere  guide-book  cool- 
ness.) From  Menaggio,  cross  by  the  steamer  over 
the  lake  to  Bellagio  (only  one  g^  if  you  please,  Mr. 
Printer) ;  and  there  stop  as  long  as  time  will  permit 
you.  Or  rather,  tear  yourself  away  as  soon  as  you 
are  able  to  bear  the  wrench  j  for  Bellagio  is  one  of 
the  Paradises  of  Europe.  You  can  make  endless 
trips  up  and  down  the  lake,  to  Dongo  and  Musso 
and  other  picturesquely  dirty  vine-trellised  villages ; 
and  you  will  here  learn  at  least  to  love  the  soil 
of  Italy.  Make  this  trip  in  autumn,  if  possible, 
when  the  grapes  are  ripe ;  that  is  the  time  to  see 
at  its  best  the  rich  rural  loveliness  of  the  over- 
grown lake-region. 

From  Bellagio  take  the  steamer  down  the  lake  to 
Como^  and  thence  on  to  Milan,  This  is  the  ideal 
tour  of  the  Italian  Lakes,  and  if  you  adopt  it  you 
will  thank  me  for  sketching  it  out  for  you. 

At  Como  you  may  see  the  Cathedral,  if  you 
like ;  but  how  can  I  advise  you  ?  We  are  now  in 
real  Italy ^  and  at  every  step  objects  of  interest  cluster 
so  thick  that  I  hardly  know  how  to  choose  between 
them  for  you.  You  cannot  possibly  see  all  (un- 
less you  intend  to  devote  a  lifetime  to  Italy  —  as 
indeed  why  should  n't  you  ?)  therefore  I  must 
needs  make  some  selection  for  you.  Let  me  illus- 
trate this    painful    embarrassment  of  riches  by   the 


The  Threshold  of  Italy  i  jj 

case  of   the   route   from    Como   to   Milan.     And 
please  bear  in  mind  that  here  I  am  not  telling  you 
to  go  and  see  these  things   but   rather  to  forego 
them.     Well,  between  Como  and  Milan  you  have 
a  choice  of  two  ways,  each  of  which  will  take  you 
past   a  place  of  immense   artistic   interest,  —  and 
you  must  stop  for  neither.      One  is  the  Gotthard 
main  line,  which  goes  by  Monza^  where  there  is  a 
Gothic  Lombard  Cathedral  of  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury, erected  on  the  site  of  Queen  Theodolind*s 
far    earlier    sixth-century   barbaric   building.     For 
Monza  was  Queen  Theodolind's  town,  the  royal 
city  of  the  Lombard  conquerors  of  North  Italy; 
and  in  the  Cathedral  you  might  still   see  her  sar- 
cophagus (if  I  would  allow  you)  and  learn  from  the 
frescoes  how  she  burned  the  nails  of  Christ  into 
her  head  red-hot.     The  Iron  Crown  of  the  Lom- 
bards which  Theodolind  formed  from  the  nail  pre- 
served  by  the  Empress  Helena  may  still  be  seen 
here;  a   hoop  of  gold  encircles  the  sacred  relic, 
and  has  girt  the  foreheads  of  many  Emperors,  real 
or  false,  including  Charles  V.,  Ferdinand  of  Aus- 
tria, and   Napoleon   I.     The  treasury  is   rich  in 
similar  ancient  relics ;  but  you  have  no  time  to  see 
them.     The  alternative  route  takes  you   past  Sa- 
ronno^  where  is  a  famous  Sanctuary  of  the  Blessed 
Virgin,  in  which  Luini  is  said  to  have  taken  refuge 


12 


178  The  European  Tour 

after  a  homicide  in  self-defence,  and  for  which 
he  painted  perhaps  his  finest  series  of  frescoes. 
These  frescoes  are  among  the  loveliest  things  of  their 
sort  in  Italy ;  but  if  you  turn  aside  to  see  them,  there 
will  be  no  end  to  it.  You  will  spend  the  rest  of 
your  life  between  here  and  P  lorence,  and  totter  in, 
at  last,  a  gray-haired  man,  to  die  of  old  age  at  Siena. 

So  I  say  it  sternly :  go  straight  on  from  Bellagio 
or  Como  or  Lugano  to  Milan. 

And  how  about  Milan  ?  Well,  it  is  the  fashion 
with  picturesque-loving  tourists  to  sneer  at  Milan, 
because  it  happens  to  have  tolerably  broad  streets 
and  a  modern  municipality.  Item,  it  is  also  com- 
paratively sanitary  for  an  Italian  city ;  and  it  cer- 
tainly lacks  as  a  whole  the  quaint  charm  and 
attractiveness  of  Verona  or  Padua.  If  you  listen 
to  the  average  traveller  who  has  "  done  "  Milan  in 
a  day,  you  will  learn  that  it  has  nothing  of  interest 
except  its  Cathedral.  That  is  about  as  superficial 
a  view  as  you  could  well  take  of  it ;  it  reminds 
me  of  a  friend  who  could  not  occupy  himself  for 
more  than  three  days  in  Paris.  I  have  visited 
Milan  a  round  dozen  of  times  at  least,  revelling  in 
its  antiquity :  and  each  time  I  desire  to  make  my 
visit  longer  than  the  last  one. 

To  me,  indeed,  the  Cathedral  is  the  least  among 
the  joys  of  Milan.     The  town  is  a  museum  of  art 


The  Threshold  of  Italy  179 

and  history ;  and  the  environs  are  simply  alive  with 
architecture,  painting,  and  antiquarian  interest. 

I  am  not  writing  a  guide  to  Milan,  however;  I 
even  doubt  whether  I  shall  ever  reach  that  point  in 
my  series ;  I  am  simply  trying  to  put  you  at  the 
proper  point  of  view  for  seeing  it.  Milan,  then, 
appeals  to  you  most  as  the  first  really  Italian  town 
of  importance  you  have  entered ;  the  place  where 
you  may  begin  to  understand  Italy,  or  rather,  to 
catch  some  first  vague  hint  of  ner  loveliness,  her 
loveableness.  Mediolanum  was  a  Gaulish  town 
before  it  was  a  Roman  one ;  and  it  has  always 
been  the  capital  of  the  broad  plain  of  Lombardy, 
the  only  really  rich  district  in  Italy.  Yet  it  con- 
tains comparatively  little  of  Roman  antiquity,  be- 
cause it  was  wholly  destroyed  in  1162  by  the 
Emperor  Frederick  Barbarossa ;  on  which  occasion, 
as  you  will  remember  I  told  you,  he  conveyed  the 
Three  Magi,  or  what  remained  of  them,  to  his  city 
of  Cologne.  It  is  the  great  advantage  of  a  Euro- 
pean tour  that  facts  like  these  are  always  thus 
cropping  up  again  in  fresh  places  ;  you  learn  his- 
tory without  knowing  it,  by  dint  of  coming  across 
the  self-same  person  in  ten  different  connections. 
Almost  the  only  relic  of  ancient  Roman  Milan  that 
has  survived  this  destruction  by  the  Redbeard  Em- 
peror is   a  group  of  sixteen   Corinthian  columns 


i8o  The  European  Tour 

near  the  Porta  Ticinese.  If  I  were  personally 
conducting  a  party  of  tourists  round  Milan  a  la 
Cook  (and  I  can  imagine  nothing  more  delightful), 
I  would  take  them  fi'-st  to  see  those  columns,  in  order 
to  make  chem  understand  that  the  spot  on  which  we 
stand  is  classic  ground,  —  a  city  of  remote  and 
prehistoric  antiquity,  now  wholly  overlaid  by  a  me- 
diaeval Renaissance,  and  modern  conglomeration. 

Yet  there  are  no  small  remains  of  a  Milan  only 
just  post-classic ;  for  Frederick  Barbarossa  spared 
a  few  churches.  And  this  intermediate  period 
between  the  old  and  new  worlds,  of  which  you 
may  have  caught  faint  glimpses  already  at  Aix 
and  in  the  Rhine  Country,  is  one  of  the  most  de- 
lightfully romantic  points  about  Europe.  There 
is  the  old  church  of  San  Lorenzo^  for  instance  — 
originally,  it  is  believed,  a  palace  of  the  fourth 
century,  and  octagonal  in  shape,  like  Charle- 
magne*s  mausoleum.  Here  for  the  first  time,  in 
the  chapel  of  St.  Aquilinus,  you  will  come  across 
early  Christian  mosaics  of  the  sixth  and  seventh 
centuries ;  while  close  by  lies  the  sarcophagus  of  the 
founder  of  the  church,  the  Gothic  king  Ataulph, 
whom  readers  of  Gibbon  will  no  doubt  remember 
under  the  eighteenth-century  disguise  of  "  Adol- 
phus."  Still  more  interesting  is  the  other  old 
church  of  Sant^  Ambrogio^  founded  by  St.  Ambrose 


The  Threshold  of  Italy  1 8 1 

in  the  fourth  century,  in  order  to  contain  the 
bones  of  those  very  apocryphal  saints,  Protasius 
and  Gervasius,  whose  whereabouts  was  revealed  to 
him  by  the  extremely  unsatisfactory  medium  of  a 
dream.  The  courtyard  or  atrium  still  follows  the 
lines  of  the  old  building ;  the  existing  edifice  is 
somewhat  later  —  Romanesque  twelfth  century 
—  but  it  contains  amongst  other  delicious  things 
a  marvellous  High  Altar,  a  few  beautiful  reliefs, 
and  a  number  of  mosaics  of  earlier  date  than  the 
existing  building.  It  is  this  mixture  of  ages  that  is 
so  delightful  at  Sant*  Ambrogio ;  for  side  by  side 
with  these  ancient  Christian  works  stand  glorious 
frescoes  by  Luini,  Gaudenzio  Ferrari,  and  Lanini. 
I  cannot  describe  it  all  —  I  wish  I  might,  for  Italy 
carries  one  away.  I  can  only  say,  that  one  church 
of  St.  Ambrose  is  worth  a  voyage  across  the  At- 
lantic to  see.  Nothing  of  interest  in  Milan! 
Why,  the  old  stone  outside  the  church  where  the 
Lombard  kings  took  the  coronation  oath  in  the 
ancient  fashion,  is  in  itself  a  wonder.  As  for 
the  early  Christian  remains,  they  are  worth  five 
ordinary  northern  minsters. 

After  mouldering  churches  like  these,  the  ex- 
quisite white  marble  Cathedral  itself  looks  painfully 
modern.  It  is  beautiful,  of  course,  but  it  is  not 
the  most  important  thing  to  see  in  Milan ;  far  from 


1  8  2  The  European  Tour 

it.  It  belongs  to  a  late  and  sophisticated  age  of 
Gothic ;  its  architecture  is  not  pure  ;  its  sculpture 
is  largely  modern ;  and  its  facade  has  been  defaced 
by  a  tasteless  and  incongruous  set  of  Renaissance 
doorways.  Only  people  who  mistake  bigness  for 
greatness  could  ever  think  the  Cathedral  the  greatest 
sight  of  Milan.  It  resembles  too  much  a  vast 
triumph  of  confectionery,  —  one  of  those  white  iced 
cakes  which  stand  as  advertisements  in  the  pastry- 
cook's window.  And  having  said  this  much 
against  it,  I  may  add  per  contra  that  it  is  one  of  the 
loveliest  buildings  in  the  world :  its  roof  is  unique 
in  its  vi^ay,  and  truly  marvellous ;  and  its  interior 
(if  only  one  can  forget  the  imitation  painted  fret- 
work of  the  ceiling)  is  extremely  impressive.  You 
must  see  the  Cathedral,  of  course ;  it  is  a  sight  to 
see:  but  for  heaven's  sake  don't  go  away  and  sup- 
pose that  seeing  the  Cathedral  is  seeing  Milan. 

No ;  the  things  to  see  in  Milan  are  the  glorious 
old  churches,  and,  above  all,  the  pictures.  I  do  not 
mean  the  ruined  fresco  of  the  Last  Supper^  which 
most  visitors  go  to  look  at  with  pious  care  because 
they  understand  it  was  once  Leonardo  da  Vinci's, 
and  because  they  have  been  told  (quite  rightly) 
that  Leonardo  is  one  of  the  greatest  geniuses  that 
ever  lived  on  our  planet.  The  Last  Supper  is 
a  Leonardo  no  doubt,  the  finest  thing  Leonardo 


The  Threshold  of  Italy         183 

ever  painted ;  but  as  scarcely  anything  remains  of 
it  save  a  few  mouldering  outlines,  I  do  not  regard 
it  now  as  a  sight  of  the  first  importance.  But  the 
Brera !  At  the  Brera  you  will  get  your  first 
glorious  glimpse  of  Italian  painting  on  Italian  soil ; 
you  will  see  the  whole  wealth  of  the  Lombard 
school  displayed  before  you ;  you  will  admire  the 
frescoes  by  Luini,  Foppa,  Bramantino,  and  Gau- 
denzio  Ferrari,  sawn  out  of  Lombard  churches; 
you  will  learn  to  know  Borgognone,  and  Ber- 
nardino de'  Conti,  and  the  old  Milanese  painters,  as 
well  as  the  later  group  of  half  Florentine  artists  who 
took  their  inspiration  from  the  visitor  Leonardo. 
The  Brera  alone  takes  weeks  to  see  thoroughly. 

And  here  let  me  impress  upon  you  one  good 
general  principle :  while  you  are  at  Milan,  devote 
yourself  especially  to  the  Milanese  and  Lombard  artists 
and  artificers.  You  will  find  at  the  Brera  many 
exquisite  works  of  other  schools,  pre-eminent 
among  which  is  Raphael's  Sposalizio,  the  loveliest 
and  sweetest  work  of  his  Peruginesque  period, 
before  the  Renaissance  spoiled  him.  Now,  this  is 
undoubtedly  the  most  famous  picture  in  the  collec- 
tion ;  and  it  is  the  habit  of  the  careless  tourist,  who 
is  governed  by  mere  names,  and  has  read  his 
guide-book,  to  walk  with  a  casual  glance  to  right 
and  left  through  the  vestibule  containing  the  price- 


I  84  The  European  Tour 

less    and    unique    works    of  the   Lombard    fresco 
painters;    then   to   stroll    with   an    approving    but 
condescending  eye  through  the  rooms  devoted   to 
the  Venetians  and   Brescians;  but  to  stand  long   in 
rapt    contemplation    (very   cheap    and   easy   under 
the   circumstances)  before   the   beautiful    Raphael. 
Well,  it  is  beautiful ;  to  my  mind,  after  the  Gran 
Duca,    the     most    beautiful    thing    Raphael    ever 
painted ;  and  if  he  had  stopped  short  at  that  point, 
he  would  have  done  much  better.      But  it  is  not 
the  chief  thing  one  should  study  at  Milan.     Milan 
is  a  whole,  and    Milan  is  Lombard.     There   is  a 
Madonna  by  Luini  hard  by  which   runs    Raphael 
close:  there  are  Lombard  pictures  here  whose  like 
you  cannot  see  elsewhere.      Therefore  I  say  to  you, 
study  these    other  things  if  you  like  —  the  Vene- 
tians  and   Umbrians ;    of   course    you   must  study 
them :  but  study  above  all  things  here  at  the  Brera 
the  Lombard  masters   who  belong  to  the  district. 
Try  to  understand   first    the  oldest  men, —  Foppa 
and  Borgognone.      Then  go  on  to  understand  how 
from  them  proceed  Bernardino  de'  Conti,  Braman- 
tino,  and   in  a  sense  Montagna.      After  that,  look 
at  the  influence  of  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  and  see  how 
far  his  powerful  individuality  transformed  the  Lom- 
bard taste  in  Luini,  Cesare  da  Sesto,  Boltraflio,  and 
the  others.     You    will    find    many    old    Lombard 


The  Threshold  of  Italy  185 

traits  persisting  in  these  Leonardesque  scholars ; 
and  you  will  also  find,  if  you  look  close,  how  the 
Lombard  spirit  itself  affected  Leonardo.  In  one 
word,  use  Milan  as  a  key  to  the  Lombard  soul. 
You  may  comparatively  neglect  for  the  present 
the  non-Lombard  artists.  On  your  way  north 
again,  you  must  spend  a  day  or  two  at  Milan  once 
more,  and  then  you  will  be  able  to  place  them 
better. 

In  order  to  understand  the  connection  of  the 
native  Lombard  works,  however,  with  their  place 
and  time,  you  ought  not  to  study  them  only  in 
museums,  divorced  from  their  surroundings.  That 
is  the  sure  way  to  miss  their  meaning.  Remember 
that  all  these  pictures  were  painted  for  churches^  as 
frescoes  on  the  walls  or  as  altar-pieces,  and  that 
they  are  rudely  torn  at  the  Brera  from  the  circum- 
stances that  begot  them.  As  a  coxrective  of  this 
error,  I  advise  you,  in  between  your  many  visits  to 
the  Brera  (for  you  must  visit  it  often),  to  look  well 
at  the  little  church  of  San  Maurizio^  an  oratory 
originally  erected  by  King  Sigismund  to  the 
Teutonic  soldier  saint,  and  later  belonging  to  a 
nunnery,  whose  Nuns'  Choir  behind  the  public 
church  is  about  as  big  as  the  main  building.  Here 
you  will  see  numerous  frescoes  of  Luini  and  others 
in  situ ;  in  the  place  of  honour,  the  martyrdom  of 


1 86  The  European  Tour 

the  patron,  St.  Maurice  ;  and,  to  balance  it,  King 
Sigismund  presenting  the  original  church  to  the 
saint  whose  name  it  bears.  Then,  in  other  fres- 
coes, you  get  the  donor  of  the  existing  church,  with 
his  wife,  and  their  personal  patrons.  Almost  all 
the  remaining  frescoes  are  those  of  female  saints, 
the  great  patronesses  of  virginity,  as  is  right  in  the 
church  of  a  nunnery,  —  St.  Cecilia,  St.  Ursula,  St. 
Apollonia,  St.  Scholastica,  St.  Agnes,  and  so  forth. 
The  High  Altar  has  for  its  altar-piece  the  Adora- 
tion of  the  Magi,  —  the  Three  Kings  of  Cologne, 
whose  bones,  you  will  recollect,  reposed  so  long  in 
Milan.  The  Nuns'  Choir  behind  has  more  virgin 
saints,  together  with  the  great  plague  patrons,  St. 
Roch  and  St.  Sebastian,  symbolical  of  the  secular 
work  of  the  sisters  as  attendants  on  the  suffering. 
Taken  in  this  spirit,  you  see  that  the  church  tells  a 
story  as  a  whole ;  every  work  of  art  in  it  is  there 
for  a  definite  purpose.  You  cannot  therefore  truly 
judge  of  such  works  apart  from  their  surroundings ; 
when  you  find  them  sawn  out  or  torn  away  to  place 
in  museums  —  mere  memberless  torsos  —  you 
must  always  enquire y^r  what  place  they  were  origi- 
nally intended.  So  and  so  alone  can  you  really 
understand  them.  And  it  is  to  tell  you  all  this 
that  I  have  designed  these  Guide-books. 

If  you  take  Milan  in  this  spirit,  you  will  find  it 


The  Threshold  of  Italy  1 87 

an  endless  joy ;  you  will  learn  that  the  Cathedral 
is  the  least  of  its  attractions.  Why,  there  is  the 
church  of  St.  Eustorgio  alone,  hardly  noticed  by 
most  visitors,  yet  containing  the  Chapel  where 
the  bones  of  the  Magi  were  long  preserved,  with  the 
very  sarcophagus  which  held  them ;  and  also  the 
gorgeous  Cappella  Portinari  (too  gorgeous,  alas  !) 
with  a  lovely  frieze  of  angels,  and  with  exquisite 
frescoes,  not  to  mention  the  magnificent  Gothic 
tomb  of  St.  Peter  Martyr,  which  alone  is  worth 
spending  a  day  at  Milan  to  visit.  Indeed  were  it 
in  France  or  England,  it  would  be  a  famous  object 
of  pilgrimage.  If  you  care  for  beautiful  things, 
you  could  spend  weeks  and  weeks  in  exploring 
these  lesser  churches;  and  what  you  find  in  the 
churches  still  occupies  its  proper  place,  and  gives 
you  the  right  clue  to  the  dismembered  fragments 
you  meet  in  the  museums. 

Do  not,  however,  for  a  moment  suppose  I  have 
given  a  bare  enumeration  of  the  indispensable 
things  to  be  seen  in  Milan.  Indeed,  when  I  come 
to  reckon  these  up,  I  am  fairly  staggered  in  my 
own  mind,  and  can't  imagine  how  I  am  ever  to 
get  you  away  to  Florence.  For  this  is  Italy  ;  and 
now  you  can  begin  to  realise  the  vast  and  perplex- 
ing variety  of  beautiful  or  interesting  objects  which 
Italy  flings    lavishly  in  your  path  at  every  street 


1 88  The  European  Tour 

corner.  Why,  there  is  the  Museo  Poldl-PezzoU^ 
here  a  very  secondary  sight,  after  you  have  finished 
with  the  Brera  (as  who  should  say,  exhausted  the 
ocean) ;  it  will  give  you  food  for  many  days'  sus- 
tenance —  pictures,  decorative  arts,  and  objects  of 
antiquity.  Then  there  is  the  Amhro'iana^  with  its 
paintings  and  drawings ;  there  is  the  municipal 
Salone ;  there  is  the  mediaeval  Piazza  dei  Mercanti ; 
there  are  more  things  than  I  can  mention  even  in 
brief  enumeration.  For  I  am  not  now  writing  a 
guide  to  the  city.  Really  to  see  Milan  would 
require  a  long  year ;  to  knoiv  it  would  take  the  best 
part  of  a  lifetime. 

And  in  Italy,  too,  you  will  for  the  first  time 
begin  to  understand  that  art  does  tiot  mean  merely 
pictures  and  statues.  It  is  a  pervasive  spirit  that 
animates  the  whole  world  beyond  the  Alps ;  its 
manifestations  are  everywhere.  The  Great  Hos- 
pital of  Milan, — the  Ospedale  Maggiore,  —  for 
example,  is  a  vast  brick  building,  still  used  for  its 
original  purpose  as  a  hospital.  A  vast  brick  build- 
ing !  —  elsewhere  that  would  mean  a  big  ugly 
square  block  of  utilitarian  masonry.  But  this 
hospital  is  a  half-Gothic,  half-renaissance  master- 
piece which  affords  you  some  idea  of  what  a  style 
of  architecture  might  be  if  based  upon  brick,  with 
honest  adherence  to  the  true  principles  of  brick- 


The  Threshold  of  Italy         189 

iness.  The  exquisite  beauty  of  its  terra-cotta 
mouldings  and  decorations  makes  it  a  thing  of 
delight ;  you  can  spend  an  hour  with  pleasure  in 
wandering  round  its  nine  courts  and  observing  its 
detail.  Stroll  about  Milan  and  look  for  lovely 
things  like  these,  or  like  the  delicious  equestrian 
figure  of  the  Podesta  Tresseno  on  the  Palazzo 
della  Ragione,  or  like  the  ancient  carved  stones  in 
the  atrium  of  Sant'  Ambrogio,  or  like  the  lovely 
Luinis  in  San  Giorgio  al  Palazzo,  or  like  Bra- 
mante's  sacristy  in  San  Satiro,  with  the  later  Foppa's 
sweet  baby  angels,  —  and  do  not  imagine  Milan 
is  a  mere  modern  French  town  because  you  spend 
all  your  time  in  the  Galleria  Vittorio  Emanuele, 
and  stare  at  the  brand-new  monument  to  Leonardo 
da  Vinci.  If  any  man  says  he  does  not  care  for 
Milan,  he  convicts  himself  at  once  of  never  having 
looked  for  it. 

As  to  the  neighbourhood  of  the  city,  and  the 
Lombard  plain^  what  can  I  say  ?  Sirens  innumer- 
able stretch  their  arms  to  lure  you  away  from  your 
true  lady,  Florence.  Resist  them  all,  though  't  is 
hard  work  resisting.  Bergamo  will  try  to  tempt 
you  to  its  picturesque  hill-top  citadel ;  Brescia  will 
offer  you  its  Morettos  and  its  Roman  remains; 
Pavia,  Piacenza,  Cremona  will  all  call  to  you  from 
many   sides    with    alluring    voices.     Resist    them, 


190  The  European  Tour 

and  be  strong ;  your  goal  is  Florence  !  But  stay, 
I  must  just  allow  you  to  see  the  Certosa  di  Pavia. 
It  is  but  half  an  hour  off  by  rail,  Lombard  of  the 
Lombards,  closely  bound  up  with  Milan  and  her 
greatest  dynasty ;  and  one  long  day  will  suffice  to 
give  it  a  first  visit  of  explorntion,  a  reconn^iissance, 
so  to  speak.  Here  you  will  find  out  what  I  mean 
when  I  talk  about  the  pervasiveness  of  art  in  Italy  j 
for  it  will  occupy  you  for  a  couple  of  hours  to 
examine  the  medallions  and  decorations  on  the 
unfinished  facade.  If  it  were  finished,  I  don't 
know  how  you  could  avoid  spending  the  night  on 
the  spot,  and  going  on  with  your  examination  of 
that  masterpiece  on  the  morrow.  Baedeker,  who 
is  always  culpably  stingy  of  his  time,  says,  give  the 
place  two  hours.  Two  hours  would  not  suffice  to 
walk  round  it  physically !  Go  over  in  the  morn- 
ing, see  what  you  can  before  lunch,  take  an  al 
fresco  dejeuner  in  the  garden  of  the  little  inn  out- 
side (there !  I  have  broken  for  once  my  general 
rule  of  ignoring  hotels  and  "  practical  information  " 
—  which  usually  means  advertisement)  and  return 
to  the  monastery  in  the  afternoon  to  complete 
your  cursory  inspection.  As  to  knowing  it,  that 
would  be  a  task  of  many  weeks  at  least.  When 
you  have  finished  looking  through  it,  with  its  end- 
less wealth  of  decorative  detail,  you  will  run  back 


The  Threshold  of  Italy  191 

to  Milan  feeling  the  truth  of  what  I  say,  that  in 
Italy  art  and   life  are  conterminous. 

I  had  meant  to  put  into  this  chapter  a  few 
general  remarks  about  the  order  of  the  great  Italian 
cities;  but  I  see  Milan  alone  has  delayed  me  so 
long  that  I  must  defer  them  now  to  another 
chapter.  Yet  I  will  leave  unaltered  what  I  have 
already  written.  Quod  scrips!,  scripsi.  "  Why 
can't  he  run  his  pen  through  it,"  you  will  say, 
*'  instead  of  treating  his  readers  so  cavalierly  ?  " 
Not  so  ;  I  do  it  not  without  a  meaning.  It  helps 
to  let  you  feel  how  Italy  runs  away  with  one.  I 
sat  down  at  this  chapter  to  write  of  Milan,  deter- 
mining to  cut  it  as  short  as  I  could ;  I  did  cut  it 
short,  hardly  dwelling  at  all,  for  example,  on  the 
riches  of  the  Brera,  and  omitting  all  mention  of 
whole  aspects  of  the  town  which  I  should  have 
liked  to  dilate  upon ;  yet  I  could  not  keep  it  down 
to  what  I  originally  intended.  The  truth  is,  if 
there  were  no  Florence  and  no  Venice,  Milan  or 
Padua  or  Verona  would  be  a  world's  wonder. 
The  Certosa  di  Pavia  alone,  of  which  I  dare  say 
you  never  read  till  to-day,  far  outweighs  any  two 
average  northern  cathedrals.  Yet  because  they 
are  in  Italy,  we  judge  them  all  by  an  Italian 
standard.  Fancy  wasting  your  time  over  Win- 
chester or  Salisbury,  with  the  Certosa  un visited! 


CHAPTER   XII 

THE    GREAT    ITALIAN    CITIES 

"^TOW  that  you  are  in  Italy,  the  question  next 
-^  ^  arises,  in  what  order  ought  you  to  visit  the 
Italian  cities  ? 

On  this  point,  my  opinion  is  quite  explicit. 
The  proper  order  is  —  Florence,  Venice,  Rome, 
Naples. 

I  know  there  is  very  little  chance  of  your  taking 
my  advice.  The  railways,  and  the  natural  config- 
uration of  the  country  have  made  another  order 
so  much  more  easy.  The  tourist  is  tempted  by 
convenience  of  travel  to  go  from  Milan  to  Venice, 
taking  Verona  and  Padua  on  the  way  j  then  from 
Venice  to  Florence,  and  so  on  to  Rome  and 
Naples.  I  grant  that  this  is  the  easiest  plan ;  and 
if  you  intend  merely  to  rush  through  Italy  on  a 
pleasure  jaunt,  scampering  through  the  whole  thing 
in  three  or  four  weeks  —  well,  the  order  of  the 
visit  won't  much  matter  to  you.  But  if  you  really 
want  to  see  Italy ^  however  hurriedly  —  to  gain  a 
glimpse  of  what  Italy  has  meant  for  humanity  — 


The  Great  Italian  Cities        193 

to  learn  a  filial  affection  for  that  great  mother  of 
our  arts,  our  literatures,  our  culture  —  then  I  say 
to  you  emphatically,  begin  with  Florence.  And  not 
only  that,  but  learn  Florence  pretty  well  before 
you  go  elsewhere.  For  this  I  will  give  you  ample 
reasons  hereafter.  For  the  present,  I  will  sun^ 
them  up  in  a  single  sentence  :  Florence  is  the  whole 
book ;  the  other  towns  are  but  scattered  pages. 

It  is  a  mistake,  therefore,  to  visit  Venice  before 
you  have  seen  Florence.  But  there  is  a  far  deeper 
and  more  fatal  mistake  against  which  I  would  most 
earnestly  warn  you,  —  a  mistake  very  commonly 
made,  especially  by  Americans,  yet  one  which 
vitiates  your  whole  idea  of  Italy,  —  one  which 
often  gives  people  a  distaste  for  it  at  once,  and  pre- 
vents them  from  learning  to  love  it  like  a  mother. 
Don't  go  first  to  Rome.  I  regard  that  point  as  of 
so  great  importance  that  I  will  even  repeat  it  in  all 
the  dignity  of  capitals :  Don't  go  first  to 
Rome.  If  you  do,  you  will  never  so  well  under- 
stand Italy.  To  see  Venice  before  you  have  seen 
Florence  is  a  serious  mistake ;  to  see  Rome  before 
you  have  seen  Florence  is  a  fatal  blunder. 

Why  ?  Well,  you  will  learn  why  at  greater 
length  when  we  come  to  deal  with  Rome  in  a  sep- 
arate chapter ;  but  I  will  add  here  by  anticipation 
two  excellent    reasons :    Firsts  because  Fenice  and 

13 


194  The  European  Tour 

Florence  are  beautiful  pictures^  while  Rome  is  a  dry 
but  valuable  historical  volume ;  and  if  you  begin 
with  the  dry  book,  you  will  think  Italy  a  task, 
while  if  you  begin  with  the  beautiful  picture  you 
will  think  it  a  joy  and  a  privilege.  Second,  because 
Rome  had  never  any  art  of  her  own,  nor  even  any 
continuous  art  of  any  sort ;  she  merely  borrowed 
now  and  then  a  distinguished  Tuscan,  or  a  distin- 
guished Umbrian,  or  a  distinguished  Venetian,  and 
set  him  to  decorate  some  church  or  some  palace. 
Therefore  you  can  never  understand  the  growth 
and  evolution  of  art  at  Rome;  you  must  study  the 
causes  which  produced  the  Tuscan  or  the  Umbrian 
in  Tuscany  and  Umbria.  Moreover,  Rome  is  so 
vast  and  so  complex  that  if  you  begin  with  Rome 
you  can  never  understand  anything;  but  if  you 
have  learnt  elsewhere,  and  go  to  Rome  with  your 
ideas  upon  certain  periods  of  art  made  up,  you  can 
attack  that  huge  heterogeneous  mass  with  some 
chance  of  understanding  it.  For  these  and  for 
many  other  reasons  which  will  come  out  as  we 
proceed,  I  would  strongly  dissuade  you  from  going 
first  to  Rome,  and  just  as  strongly  advise  you  to 
go  first  to  Florence. 

Rome  is  a  capital,  and  people  think  therefore 
they  should  see  Rome  first  and  the  provinces  after- 
wards.    But  this  is  a  fallacy.     Florence  and  Ven- 


The  Great  Italian  Cities         195 

ice  were  never  provinces  as  compared  to  Rome ; 
on  the  contrary,  they  were  great  centres  which 
gave  their  arts  and  literature  to  Rome.  Besides, 
the  peculiar  government  of  the  Papacy  resulted  in 
this,  —  that  a  Florentine  Pope  invited  Florentine 
artists  to  Rome,  a  Sienese  invited  Sienese,  and  an 
Umbrian  Umbrians.  Venetian  cardinals  wanted 
Venetian  art ;  and  often  a  break  of  inartistic  Popes 
from  out-of-the-way  places  results  in  a  break  in 
the  history  of  decoration  and  architecture  in  the 
Papal  city.  Hence  there  is  no  continuity  at  all  in 
Rome;  it  consists  of  scraps  and  odds  and  ends 
from  everywhere.  You  could  find  no  worse  town 
in  which  to  study  the  evolution  of  the  arts,  though 
you  can  find  no  better  one  in  which  finally  to 
compare  the  finished  products.  The  moral  is,  go 
last  to  Rome.  See  it  after  you  have  learned  what 
Italy  aims  at. 

Again  you  will  say,  "  But  Rome  has  so  old  and 
continuous  a  history ;  there  and  there  only  we  get 
back  to  the  roots  of  things.  Ought  we  not  to 
bee;in  at  the  fountain-head  ?  "  I  think  not.  It  is 
all  too  confused,  too  complex,  too  manifold. 
There  are  three  or  four  Romes^  —  ancient,  imperial, 
Papal,  Renaissance,  modern.  You  will  feel  that 
even  after  you  have  been  to  Florence  and  Venice ; 
the  multiplicity  and  variety  of  Rome  will  still  stun 


196  The  European  Tour 

and  puzzle  you.  How  much  more,  then,  if  you 
approach  the  Vatican,  knowing  nothing  of  Raphael; 
and  fly  from  it  straight  to  the  Lateran,  knowing 
nothing  of  early  Christian  art;  and  thence  to  the 
Capitol,  knowing  nothing  of  antique  sculpture  ? 
Let  yourself  down  gently.  Learn  one  thing  at  a 
time.  To  go  straight  to  Rome  is  to  start  at  once, 
as  it  were,  on  Chinese  idioms,  ancient  Egyptian 
hieroglyphs,  Hindustani  grammar,  ard  the  Welsh 
language. 

All  this  will  become  clearer  to  you  as  we 
proceed  with  our  survey.  For  the  present,  if 
you  have  learned  to  trust  my  judgment  at  all,  I 
will  recommend  you  to  place  your  life  in  my  hands 
and  go  straight  to  Florence, 

For  the  educational  value  of  Florence  is  something 
quite  unique  and  exceptional.  It  is  the  one  place 
where  you  can  get  a  full  and  connected  view  of 
the  growth  of  the  arts  in  modern  Italy.  It  is  quite 
true  you  will  find  nothing  antique  worth  speaking 
of  at  Florence,  —  nothing,  that  is  to  say,  save  the 
sculptures  of  the  Uffizi,  which  are  not  really  local, 
but  were  collected  at  Rome  by  a  Medici  cardinal. 
The  town  itself,  though  it  goes  back  to  Roman 
times,  has  scarcely  a  trace  to-day  of  its  Roman 
origin.  It  is  purely  a  Christian  Tuscan  city.  But 
that,  I  venture  to  think,  increases  its  utility  as  a 


The  Great  Italian  Cities        197 

living    object   lesson.     You  are  not  distracted  by 
too  many  subjects  at  once,  —  though,  indeed,  the 
rise  of  Florentine    painting,  P'lorentine  sculpture, 
Florentine  architecture,  and  Florentine  decorative 
arts  will  supply  you  with  ample  work,  if  it  comes 
to  that,  for  three  or  four  lifetimes.     Nowhere  in 
the  world  can  you  gain  so  clear  and  connected  an 
idea  of  the  origins  of  the   Christian  civilisation  in 
whose  midst  we  live  as  in  this  town  of  Florence. 
Therefore  I  say,  spend  as  long  a  time  as  you  can 
spare  in    Florence,       If  you  are  going    to    be    six 
months   in    Europe,    for   example,  I    should   allot 
two  months  of  that  time  at  least  to  the  Tuscan 
capital.       If  a  year,  then  give  it  two  months  of 
autumn,  before  you  see  Rome,  and  two  months  of 
spring,  later,  to    revise    your   impressions.       The 
more  you  see  of  Florence  the  more  will  you  learn 
that  she  is  indeed  the  standard.     You  must  gauge 
the  development  of  the  arts  elsewhere  by  the  light 
of  the   exceptionally  continuous  development  you 
will  find  in  Florence. 

Siena  and  still  more  Ravenna  begin  earlier ;  but 
they  end  sooner.  Venice  and  Rome  are  spas- 
modic ;  they  have  gaps  and  lacunae.  But  Florence 
is  a  whole  i  she  is  constant  and  continuous.  She 
embraces  all  arts  (except  perhaps  mosaic,  which  is 
sparingly    represented)  j  and   she  forms  the  chief 


198  The  European  Tour 

models.  She  is  far  and  away  the  queen  in 
post-Roman  Italy. 

All  that  was  ever  great  in  Italy  came  from  the 
Tuscan  blood.  Literature,  science,  and  art  appear 
everywhere  just  in  proportion  as  that  blood  is 
dominant.  Florence  early  rose  in  modern  times  to 
be  the  capital  of  tht  central  mass  of  the  Etruscan 
race ;  and  Florence  therefore  sums  up  in  herself  all 
that  is  most  distinctively  Italian  in  Italy.  No 
town  was  ever  so  beloved.  It  chains  one  with  a 
chain  of  affection  like  a  human  mistress.  When 
you  go  back  to  it  after  absence,  you  will  find  your- 
self smiling  involuntarily  at  every  street  corner. 
Florence  eats  herself  into  your  heart.  She  is  loved 
of  her  lovers. 

My  general  advice^  then,  is  this  :  go  direct  in  the 
first  instance  from  Milan  to  Florence.  Spend  as 
long  a  time  there  as  you  think  you  can  spare. 
Then  make  your  way  back  to  Venice.  Give 
Venice  three  or  four  weeks  —  I  know  only  too 
well  how  inadequate  is  that  time,  but  I  know  also 
you  cannot  help  it.  Then  return  by  Florence  to 
Rome,  and  thence  to  Naples. 

As  for  the  minor  Italian  cities^  I  know  not  what 
to  advise.  My  heart  within  me  is  torn  in  two 
directions.  On  the  one  hand,  I  cannot  endure  to 
say,  "  Omit  Verona,  Padua,  Siena,  Perugia,  Pisa." 


The  Great  Italian  Cities        199 

It  is  too  distressing.  On  the  other  hand,  I  feel  so 
deeply  the  importance  of  concentrating  yourself  on 
the  three  most  instructive  towns,  Florence,  Rome, 
and  Venice.  More  than  ever  as  I  write  these  lines 
do  I  realise  the  truth  of  what  I  said  at  the  begin- 
ning,—  it  is  folly  to  give  three  years  to  a  college 
"  education  "  and  then  refuse  three  months  tc  that 
vast  comprehensive  university,  Italy.  Let  us  co.ii- 
promise,  then,  and  say,  on  a  first  visit,  I  will  try  to 
indicate  a  convenient  time  for  just  a  glimpse  of 
these  four  or  five  most  important  secondary 
cities,  —  each  of  them  far  richer  than  anything 
out  of  Italy. 


CHAPTER   XIII 

FLORENCE 

^  I  ^HE  Greeks  made  Aphrodite  rise  glorious  from 
■*•  the  foam  of  the  sea ;  even  so  I  always 
think  of  Florence,  the  Queen  of  Beauty  in  our 
modern  world,  as  rising  glorious  from  the  yeasty 
chaos  of  the  early  Middle  Ages. 

There  is  only  one  Florence,  Get  there  as  fast  as 
you  reasonably  can ;  stop  there  forever ;  and  go 
back  again  afterwards  at  frequent  intervals.  What- 
ever this  advice  may  lack  in  logical  coherence  it 
amply  makes  up  for  in  sound  practicality. 

I  met  an  American  lady  of  a  certain  type  one 
day  at  a  comfortable  little  hotel  near  Santa  Maria 
Novella.  By  way  of  beginning  conversation,  I 
asked  her  how  long  she  meant  to  stay  in  the  town. 
"  Three  days,"  she  answered  ;  then,  seeing  my 
face  fall,  she  added  quickly,  "  But  a  week  would 
not  be  too  long."  She  was  quite  right.  A  week 
is  not  too  long  for  Florence.  The  same  thing  may 
be  said  of  a  month,  a  year,  a  lifetime. 

Florence  is  the  epitome  of  the  history  of  the 
arts,  —  not   a   dry  and  formal  epitome,  nor  yet  a 


Florence  201 

history,  nor  a  museum  ;  but  the  arts  themselves, 
telling  with  exquisite  grace  their  own  inner  story. 
Therefore  the  one  piece  of  advice  on  which  I 
Insist  above  all  others  in  a  European  tour  is  this  : 
spend  as  large  a  proportion  of  your  visit  as  you  can 
possibly  spare  in  Florence.  Whatever  else  you  see  or 
leave  unseen,  do  not  dock  for  time  the  most  im- 
portant thing  in  Europe. 

As  to  the  route  thither  from   Milan  —  suppos- 
ing you  to  have  taken  my  advice  and  gone  there 
direct,  without  turning  aside  to  see  Venice  (which 
advice  I  am   perfectly  certain  you  will  reject),  — 
there  are  two  luays  possible.     The  flesh  will  call 
for  one,  and   the  spirit  for  the  other.     The  first 
and   easiest   route   is   by  Bologna  (which  you    had 
better  omit  for  the  present),  and  thence  by  a  de- 
lightful mountain  line,  over  the  main  range  of  the 
Apennines.     The  second   route,  which  I  recom- 
mend by  preference,  is  by  Genoa  and  Pisa.     This 
is  also  a  very  picturesque  line,  and  though  in  some 
ways  less  comfortable,  it  gives  you  the  advantage 
of  being  able   to  see  Pisa  itself  en  route.     As  for 
Genoa,   I   should   say  you  can   easily  go   past  it. 
The  second  of  these  two  routes  is  the  only  one  I 
will  deal  with   here  ;  since   the   line   by   Bologna 
must  be  naturally  considered  when  we  run  back  to 
Venice.      For  the  road  between  Milan  and  Venice 


202  The  European  Tour 

direct  (if  you  refuse  to  follow  my  plan,  and  prefer 
to  follow  your  own  nose),  see  a  later  chapter. 

From  Alilan  to  Genoa^  you  cross  the  Maritime 
Alps  just  at  the  point  where  they  begin  to  lose 
their  individuality  and  to  merge  into  the  Apennines. 
The  ascent  is  pleasing ;  the  descent  on  the  other 
side  is  extremely  beautiful,  especially  as  you 
approach  the  outskirts  of  Genoa,  with  its  villa- 
covered  hills  ringing  a  bay  which  has  no  rival  but 
Naples.  Unless  you  have  plenty  of  time  to  spend  in 
Italy,  however,  I  do  not  advise  you  to  stop  at  Genoa. 
The  town  and  harbour,  to  be  sure,  are  fine  and 
finely  situated,  and  the  palaces  are  interesting ; 
but  this  is  not  the  true  Italy.  Genoa  was  never  an 
artistic  centre;  its  galleries  are  full  of  Vandycks 
and  Guidos.  In  other  words,  it  has  no  native 
school,  and  its  collections  are  those  of  mere 
amateurs  who  gathered  works  mostly  of  the  late 
and  less  interesting  periods.  Of  course,  if  you 
have  plenty  of  time  to  spare,  it  is  well  to  spend  a 
week  in  Genoa  after  you  have  seen  Venice,  Rome, 
and  Florence ;  because  you  will  then  be  able  to 
understand  its  Carracci,  its  Garofalos,  its  Domeni- 
chinos,  its  Tintorettos,  and  to  understand  their  re- 
lation to  other  pictures  elsewhere.  But  most  of 
its  art  is  practically  the  same  as  what  you  will  see 
in  the  private  galleries  of  the  Roman  nobles ;  and 


Florence  203 

the  private  galleries  of  Rome  are  certainly  among 
the  least  important  collections  to  be  visited  in  Italy. 
Therefore  I  say,  dorCt  waite  time  on  Genoa  which 
would  be  better  bestowed  in  Venice  or  Florence, 
or  on  a  glimpse  of  Siena,  Orvieto,  Padua. 

Continue  straight  on,  then,/r(7m  Milan  to  Pha, 
The  line  beyond  Genoa  goes  through  the  Riviera 
di  Levantc,  perhaps  the  loveliest  bit  of  coast  in 
Italy,  save  only  the  shore  about  Sorrento  and  Amalfi. 
Too  literally,  alas,  goes  through  it  rather  than  along 
it ;  for  it  is  almost  all  tunnel.  You  just  catch  a 
glimpse  of  some  blue  bay,  with  a  nestling  white 
town,  and  a  tall  campanile;  and,  whisk,  before  you 
know  it  you  are  in  utter  darkness  once  more, 
emerging  for  a  minute  at  the  tunnel's  end  upon 
another  bay,  another  town,  and  another  disappoint- 
ment. Leisurely  travellers  often  descend  near 
Recco  or  ^i.XTi  Margherita  to  drive  across  the  best 
bits;  it  is  really  the  only  way  of  seeing  the 
scenery. 

Hard-hearted  as  I  am,  and  bent  on  your  intel- 
lectual and  esthetic  improvement,  I  really  cannot 
hurry  you  past  Pisa  without  a  couple  of  nights  at 
least  in  that  entrancing  city.  And  indeed,  Pisa  is 
the  proper  prelude  to  Florence;  for  when  Tuscany 
began  to  raise  its  head  once  more  after  the  barba- 
rian  deluge,   it   was   Pisa  that  aspired    to   be    the 


204  The  European  Tour 

leader  of  Tuscany.  She  made  herself  great  with  a 
spasmodic  greatness,  which  left  a  stamp  for  all 
time  on  the  glorious  cluster  of  buildings  about  the 
Cathedral  and  the  Campo  Santo.  Stop  and  see 
these  buildings  j  they  are  unique  in  the  world  in 
their  position  and  grouping.  They  stand  all  by 
themselves  in  a  little  square  or  Piazza  just  at  the 
outskirt  of  the  town,  unspoilt  by  the  interference  of 
other  buildings.  The  check  to  Pisa's  greatness 
has  given  us  this  treat ;  elsewhere  the  growth  of 
population  has  crowded  up  the  cathedral  squares 
with  mean  modern  houses ;  at  Pisa  alone  do  we 
see  a  mediaeval  group  as  the  mediaeval  builders 
meant  us  to  see  it.  The  cluster  consists  of  the 
Duomo  itself,  the  Baptistery^  the  Campo  Santo^  and 
that  exquisite  Campanile  of  Tuscan-Romanesque 
architecture  which  the  vulgarity  of  the  world  has 
christened  after  an  accidental  circumstance  as 
"  the  Leaning  Tower."  Here  we  have  one  of  the 
most  perfect  specimens  of  early  Italian  art,  one  of 
the  loveliest  buildings  ever  conceived  in  the  brain 
of  man;  and  the  world  with  one  accord  goes  to 
look  at  it  and  marvel  at  it  —  because  it  happens  to 
be  a  few  feet  out  of  the  perpendicular ! 

At  Pisa,  too,  you  get  the  beginnings  of  Tuscany. 
The  architecture  of  the  Cathedral  is  the  oldest  of 
all   modern   Italian  churches  of  the  first  rank ;  in 


Florence  205 

the  smallness  of  the  dome  you  see  the  first  hint  of 
Siena,  Florence,  and  St.  Peter's  at  Rome.  Re- 
member this  order  of  historical  succession,  and 
trace  back  the  later  designs  by  and  by  to  their 
origin  at  Pisa.  Then  in  sculpture  you  have  Niccolo 
Pisano^  whose  noble  pulpit  in  the  Baptistery  you 
must  examine  closely ;  while  in  the  museum  you  will 
see  the  oUicr  lovely  pulpit  of  the  school,  tracing 
there  and  at  Siena  the  gradual  decline  through  his 
son  Giovanni  and  his  other  successors.  For  those 
who  can  do  it,  indeed,  a  tour  of  the  Pisano  influ-  . 
ence,  in  the  order  of  Pisa,  Siena,  Bologna,  Florence, 
is  deeply  interesting  ;  it  shows  you  the  springs  of 
Giotto,  of  Donatello,  and  finally  of  Michael  Angelo. 
But  for  the  hasty  visitor  it  must  suffice,  I  fear,  to 
gain  a  general  idea  at  Pisa  of  these  great  Pisani, 
and  to  follow  out  at  Florence  the  impetus  they 
gave  to  the  relatively  reactionary  sculptors  who 
succeeded  them.  You  will  then  understand  that 
Niccolo  Pisano,  a  man  born  out  of  due  season,  was 
one  of  the  greatest  and  most  original  geniuses  of 
the  Middle  Ages.  His  only  error  was  that  he  came 
too  early. 

The  worst  of  this  sort  of  book  is  this,  —  that 
as  I  reach  each  town  I  want  to  write  a  whole 
book  about  it.  This  will  never  do.  I  must  get 
on  to  Florence.     We  can  easily  manage  it  by  an 


2o6  The  European  Tour 

evening  train  at  the  end  of  our  second  day  at  Pisa, 
having  spent  the  daylight  hours  in  the  fascinating 
museum. 

So  here  we  are  at  last  in  Florence  ! 

As  to  the  particular  sights  to  be  seen  in  Florence, 
I  have  written  about  them  at  due  length  in  my 
Historical  Guide.  Here  I  will  only  try  to  im- 
press upon  you  why  Florence  is  the  most  important 
of  Italian  cities,  and  the  one  where  you  should 
spend  as  much  as  possible  of  your  time,  at  an  early 
period  of  your  visit  to  Italy. 

I  have  said  that  the  Tuscan  element  has  given 
Italy  almost  everything  that  is  great  and  noble 
within  it.  There  are  parts  of  Italy  which  scarcely 
differ  in  artistic  importance  from  the  world  beyond 
the  Alps.  Piedmont  is  nothing  ;  Liguria  is  nothing ; 
Naples  has  hardly  aught  of  native  art ;  when  we 
speak  of  Italy  we  think  really  of  the  district  roughly 
bounded  on  the  north  by  Milan  and  Venice,  and  on 
the  south  by  Rome,  —  in  short,  in  the  wider  sense, 
Etruria.  This  is  the  region  where  the  Etruscan 
blood  is  found  in  more  or  less  purity.  And  it  sur- 
vives purest  in  Tuscany  and  Umbria,  less  pure  in 
Lombardy  and  Venetia,  hardly  at  all  in  modern 
Rome,  which  lay  on  the  very  confines  of  ancient 
Etruria.  That  is  why  Rome  had  never  any  art  of 
her  own.     On  the  other  hand,  the  Tuscan  spirit 


Florence  207 

works  strongest  of  all  in  the  central  brlt^  where  not 
only  Florence  and  Pisa  produced  great  men  and  great 
works  in  every  direction,  but  where  even  smaller 
towns  like  Siena,  Perugia,  Assisi,  Cortona,  Orvicto, 
Foligno  —  nay,  even  mere  third-rate  burghs,  like 
Prato,  Pistoia,  Spoleto,  Chiusi,  Fiesole,  San  Gimi- 
gnano  are  full  of  interest.  Florence,  then,  is  the 
natural  capital  of  this  Tuscan  race,  to  which  we 
owe  everything  great  in  Italy  ;  and  in  Florence  more 
than  anywhere  else  we  can  trace  in  detail  the  ten- 
dencies and  the  mother-ideas  of  that  gifted  people. 
Moreover,  in  Florence  the  history  of  art  —  that 
is  to  say,  of  modern  art  as  distinguished  from  the 
antique  —  is  continuous  and  uniform.  Modern  art, 
I  say  ;  and  you  will  therefore  find  it  well  to  begin 
with  Florence  before  Rome,  because  Rome  gives 
you  ancient  art  as  well,  and  therefore  confuses 
you  or  distracts  your  attention ;  and  also  because 
the  art  of  Rome  is  scrappy  and  discontinuous,  only 
to  be  historically  comprehended  aright  after  you 
have  seen  Florence.  Even  Venice,  again,  though 
more  original  than  Rome,  is  less  independent  and 
self-sustaining  than  Florence ;  for  example,  in 
painting,  she  took  her  earliest  works  not  from 
Venetian  hands  at  all,  but  from  Byzantine  Greek 
painters  ;  and  when  she  began  to  develop  a  school 
of  her  own,  she  derived  it,  not  directly  from  either 


2o8  The  European  Tour 

Byzantine  or  Italian  sources,  but  oddly  enough 
from  the  school  of  Cologne,  through  her  first 
great  painter,  Giovanni  da  Allemagna  or  John  the 
German.  Later  still,  her  native  painters  of  the 
early  Renaissance  w^ere  largely  influenced  by  their 
education  at  Padua,  where  works  of  the  Florentine 
Giotto  and  the  Florentine  Donatello  (the  last- 
named  a  sculptor)  exercised  a  great  effect  upon 
the  minds  and  tastes  of  Mantegna  and  Bellini. 
So  that  even  Venice  cannot  be  thoroughly  under- 
stood till  you  have  seen  Florence,  whence  a  large 
part  of  the  influence  which  formed  her  schools 
emanated.  As  for  Milan,  Brescia,  Bologna,  and 
the  rest,  the  springs  of  their  art  are  in  a  large 
degree  Florentine. 

But  Florence  herself  is  self-contained  and  self- 
sufficing.  She  evolved  her  own  art ;  or  if  she  took 
hints  from  elsewhere,  took  them  only  from  Tuscan 
Pisa,  which  you  have  seen  on  your  way  to  her,  and 
from  her  equally  Tuscan  elder  sister,  Siena.  No 
other  city  of  Italy  can  be  thoroughly  understood 
till  you  have  understood  Florence ;  but  Florence 
stands  alone,  her  own  sole   interpreter. 

The  revival  of  art  began  in  Florence.  Its  first 
faint  notes  were  struck  by  Cimahue.  Then,  a 
generation  later,  she  derived  from  Pisa  the  net 
results  of  the    school    of   sculpture    instituted  by 


Florence  209 

Niccolo  Pisano;  and  these  bore  fruit  in  time  in 
the  grand  project  for  her  Cathedral  and  for  its 
glorious  Campanile.  But  it  was  Giotto  who  ga^^e 
the  great  impetus  to  art  in  Florence;  and  every 
other  city  in  Italy  derived  its  later  art  directly  or 
indirectly  from  Giotto  or  his  followers.     You  find 

the  hand  of  the  master  himself  everywhere in 

the  frescos  of  the  Madonna  dell'  Arena  at  Padua; 
in  the  Lower  Church  at  Assisi ;   in  San  Giovanni 
at  Ravenna;    in  the    Navicella   at  St.   Peter's    in 
Rome, —  in   short,  all  over  Italy;     but    you  can 
thoroughly   understand   him   nowhere  save  in  this 
his  special  city.      Were  it  only  for  Giotto,  who  lies 
at  the  root  of  all  Italian  art,  it  would  be  necessary 
to  visit  Florence  first.     When  you  consider  that 
the  school  founded   by  Giotto  developed  into  the 
Renaissance  painters  in  Florence  by  a  natural  and 
unbroken  evolution,  and  sent  its  teachers  to  every 
other  Italian  region,  you  will  feel  that  here  alone 
can  we  study  the  history  of  Italian  art  to  the  best 
advantage. 

Everything  in  Florence,  indeed,  is  redolent  of 
the  soil.  Elsewhere  Florentines  decorated  Roman 
churches  or  Sienese  cathedrals  ;  at  Florence  Floren- 
tines painted  Florentine  saints  for  Florentine  altars, 
or  carved  breathing  images  of  Our  Lady  of  Florence 
for  Florentine  niches.     We  get  to  know  the  Floren- 

14 


2IO  The  European  Tour 

tine  Madonna  of  the  Lily,  the  baby  Florentine  St. 
John  with  his  reed  and  scroll,  the  Florentine  Santa 
Repaiata  with  her  red-cross  flag,  as  familiarly  as 
we  know  the  face  of  George  Washington  or  the 
American  eagle.  The  features  of  the  Medici 
become  quite  familiar  to  us.  The  ascetic  Sant* 
Antonino  haunts  the  walls  of  San  Marco ;  Ghir- 
landajo's  patrons,  repeated  in  a  dozen  forms,  end 
by  being  our  intimate  acquaintances.  The  entire 
life  of  a  mediaeval  city  comes  back  to  us  in  its 
fulness ;  we  wander  among  palaces  the  faces  of 
whose  builders  still  smile  upon  us  from  their 
tombs  in  Benedetto  da  Maiano's  bronze,  or  scowl 
under  pent  brows  in  Michael  Angelo's  marble. 

That  is  the  joy  of  Florence.  So  much  of  it 
remains  that  you  can  piece  it  all  together  as  you 
can  piece  no  other  city.  I  take  a  single  example. 
In  Santa  Maria  Novella,  you  come  across  the 
tomb  of  the  Patriarch  'Joseph  of  Constantinople.  Why 
a  patriarch  of  Constantinople  at  Florence,  you 
wonder.  Well,  in  1438,  when  the  last  Byzantine 
Roman  emperors  still  held  the  city  by  the 
Bosphorus,  but  the  Turk  was  pressing  forward  and 
Christendom  was  at  bay,  a  great  council  was  held 
at  Ferrara  to  bring  about  the  reunion  of  the  East- 
ern and  Western  churches.  John  Palaeologus, 
Emperor    of  Constantinople,    and   the    Patriarch 


Florence  2 1 1 

Joseph  attended  this  council.  In  1439  it  trans- 
ferred itself  to  Florence  ;  and  while  it  sat  there, 
the  Patriarch  died  and  was  buried  in  this  church  of 
Santa  Maria  Novella.  Now  you  will  afterwards 
go  to  the  Riccardi  Palace,  which  was  at  that  time 
the  home  of  the  Medici ;  and  there,  in  the  dark 
little  chapel,  made  glorious  by  art,  you  will  see  the 
beautiful  and  fantastic  fresco  which  Bcnozzo 
Gozzoli  painted  to  represent  the  journey  of  the 
Magi  to  Bethlehem.  Here  our  old  acquaintances, 
the  Three  Kings,  typifying  as  usual  the  three  ages 
of  man,  are  in  reality  portraits  of  three  famous 
personages  of  the  moment.  The  oldest  king  is  the 
Patriarch  Joseph,  appropriately  chosen  as  one  of  the 
Wise  Men  from  the  East  ;  the  middle-aged  king  is 
the  Emperor  John  Palaeologus,  in  most  regal  attire  j 
and  the  young  king  is  Lorenzo  de'  Medici  in  his 
beautiful  youth,  accompanied  by  his  grandfather 
Cosimo  Pater  Patriae.  I  give  this  as  a  single 
illustration  of  the  interest  which  Florence  pos- 
sesses. As  for  the  artistic  charm  of  that  sumptuous 
pageant,  winding  slowly  through  a  fairy-land  of  the 
painter's  imagination,  you  must  see  the  work  itself 
before  you  can  form  the  faintest  conception  of  it. 

Let  me  din  it  into  you,  then,  as  sedulously  as  I 
dinned  Italy  itself.  Italy  above  all  things  i  and  m 
Italy,  Jjrst  and  foremost^  Florence^  Florence^  Florence  ! 


CHAPTER    XIV 

MORE    ABOUT    FLORENCE 

^  I  ^HE  western  quarter  of  the  town  (to  be  prac- 
•*•  tical  for  a  moment)  is  the  best  in  which  to 
settle.  Personally,  I  think  the  nicest  part  of  it  is 
the  Piazza  Santa  Maria  Novella,  which  is  central 
but  airy.  There  are  also  excellent  hotels  and  pen- 
sions on  the  equally  sunny  Lung'  Arno. 

Visit  Florence  historically  ^2i%  I  have  set  it  forth  in  my 
Guide.  Begin  with  the  two  oldest  great  churches, 
the  P'ranciscan  Santa  Croce,  and  the  Dominican 
Santa  Maria  Novella  ;  then  proceed  to  the  Cathe- 
dral, the  Campanile,  and  the  Baptistery;  after  that, 
attack  the  various  picture  galleries  and  the  Bargello. 
You  will  find  six  weeks  all  too  short  a  time  just 
for  walking  through  the  most  important  groups  of 
objects  in  the  city.  I  have  mentioned  in  my 
Guide  the  best  order,  and  called  attention  to  most 
of  the  indispensable  sights.  I  cannot  epitomise  it 
here.  To  chronicle  everything  in  Florence  would 
need  a  book  six  times  as  big  as  would  be  required 
for  Paris,  and  about  forty  times  the  size  that  would 
be  needed,  scale  for  scale,  for  London. 


More  About  Florence  2 1  3 

In  this  chapter,  therefore,  which  only  aims  at 
suggesting  to  you  beforehand  the  proper  point  of 
view,  I  will  confine  myself  to  a  few  special  aspects 
of  a  few  of  the  most  important  objects. 

I   said   above,  the   Franciscan  Santa   Croce    and 
the  Dominican  Santa  Maria  Novella.     In  Florence 
probably,  you  will  for  the  first  time  begin  to  under- 
stand the  importance  of  these  great  monastic  bodies^ 
and  the  way  they  each  impressed  their  own  ideas 
upon  the  art  they  patronised.     For  example,  the 
Franciscans,  the  Salvation   \rmy  of  their  day,  were 
(and  are)   beggar  friars,  wedded  to   poverty,  and 
preaching   the   cross   of   Christ    to  the  poor    and 
neglected.     At  Assisi  you  will  perhaps  find  time  to 
see  later  St.  Francis's  own  church,  with  the  frescoes 
by  Giotto  which  represent  that  ecstatic  revivalist 
married    in    bodily    union    to    his    bride,   Poverty. 
But  for  the   present,  here  in  Florence,  you   must 
content   yourself  with   examining   this    Franciscan 
church  of  the  Holy  Cross  JuW  of  the  Cross  itself  and 
the  Franciscan  order  which  preaches  it.     You  will 
make   a  great   mistake  if  you  go  to  Santa  Croce 
regarding  it  merely  as  a  church  in  general  where 
you  expect  to  see   some  good  frescoes  by  Giotto. 
You  can  only  comprehend  its  inner  meaning  if  you 
bear  in  mind   at  every  turn  that  it  is  a  Franciscan 
church,  dedicated  to  the  cult  of  the  Holy  Cross. 


2  14  The  European  Tour 

St.  Francis  died  in  1226,  and  was  promptly  can- 
onised in  1228.  His  followers  spread  over  every 
part  of  Italy,  choosing  in  each  town  the  poorest 
quarters,  and  ministering  to  the  needs  of  the  lowest 
classes.  In  1294  they  began  to  erect  this  church 
in  Florence,  which  Giotto  decorated  with  some  of 
his  finest  frescoes.  The  Ho/y  Cross  is  its  keynote. 
Over  the  main  entrances  are  three  reliefs,  repre- 
senting respectively  the  Discovery  of  the  True 
Cross  by  the  Empress  Helena,  the  Adoration  of 
the  Cross  by  all  the  world,  and  the  Cross  appearing 
in  the  Sky  to  Constantine.  Over  the  chief  gable, 
the  Cross  is  sustained  by  two  marble  angels.  The 
choir,  the  holiest  part  of  the  building,  has  frescoes 
of  the  mythical  legend  of  the  Cross,  from  Adam 
downward,  by  Agnolo  Gaddi.  Throughout,  the 
Holy  Cross  gives  the  subject  of  the  building,  and 
knits  it  all  together  into  a  single  poem. 

Equally  marked  is  the  Franciscan  influence.  In 
half  the  pictures  in  this  church,  you  will  recognise 
on  saint  after  saint  the  coarse  brown  Franciscan 
robes.  The  monogram  of  Christ  (I.  H.  S.), 
adopted  as  his  symbol  by  San  Bernardino  of  Siena, 
the  great  Franciscan  revivalist  preacher,  meets  you 
at  every  turn ;  one  such  was  affixed  on  the  old 
facade  by  the  saint's  own  hands.  The  exquisite 
pulpit,  the  noblest  work  of  Benedetto  da   Maiano, 


More  About  Florence 


215 


is  adorned  with  reliefs  from  the  life  of  St.  Francis 
and  the  history  of  his  followers  —  the  Confirmation 
of  the  Franciscan  order  by  the  Pope,  the  Burning 
of  the  Immoral  Books,  St.  Francis  receiving  the 
Stigmata,  the  Death  of  St.  Francis,  and  the  Mar- 
tyrdom of  a  group  of  Franciscan  Brothers.  A 
fresco  in  the  nave  by  Andrea  del  Castagno  shows 
us  side  by  side  St.  John  Baptist,  patron  of  the 
town  of  P'lorencc,  and  St.  Francis,  patron  of  this 
church  and  order.  The  Bardi  chapel  contains 
Giotto's  famous  frescoes  of  the  life  of  St.  Francis. 
Everywhere  these  two  interwoven  themes  dominate 
the  great  church,  —  the  Holy  Cross  and  the  Fran- 
ciscan order. 

These  themes,  I  say,  strike  the  keynote.  But 
they  do  not  exhaust  the  manifold  interest  of  this 
wonderful  building,  which  alone  would  repay  many 
weeks  of  study.  I  will  mention  a  single  other  feature 
only.  One  of  the  many  outgrowths  of  Santa  Croce 
is  the  Medici  chapel^  built  by  Michelozzo  for  Cosimo 
de*  Medici,  Pater  Patriae.  It  is  full  of  lovely 
works,  almost  all  of  them  instinct  with  allusions  to 
St.  Francis,  to  the  Holy  Cross,  and  to  the  Medici 
family.  I  can  find  room  to  mention  a  solitary  in- 
stance only ;  the  beautiful  altar-piece  in  glazed  and 
coloured  terra-cotta  work  by  Luca  della  Robbia. 
This  has  for  its  central  figure  the  Madonna  being 


2i6  The  European  Tour 

crowned  by  angels ;  around  her  stand  a  group 
of  appropriate  local  saints,  —  St.  John  Baptist  in 
camel's  hair,  as  patron  of  Florence ;  St.  Lawrence 
with  his  gridiron,  as  patron  of  Lorenzo  de'  Medici; 
St.  Francis  with  the  Stigmata,  as  patron  of  this 
Franciscan  Church ;  and  St.  Louis  of  Toulouse, 
the  great  Franciscan  royal  luminary.  Everything 
here,  in  short,  is  full  of  the  ruling  Medici,  espe- 
cially in  their  connection  with  the  Franciscan  order. 
It  is  the  same  with  every  other  chapel  in  such  a 
church.  We  can  only  understand  it,  first  in  con- 
nection with  the  church  of  which  it  is  a  member, 
and  next  in  connection  with  the  family  to  whom 
it  belongs,  or  once  belonged. 

Most  visitors  to  Florence  go  to  Santa  Croce 
because  they  are  told  it  is  the  Westminster  Ahhey  of 
Florence^  and  they  visit  chiefly  the  tombs  of  Michael 
Angelo,  and  Macchiavelli,  and  Galileo,  and  Alfieri. 
Now,  this  is  a  foolish  and  unworthy  way  of  regard- 
ing a  great  historical  monument.  It  is  putting  the 
cart  before  the  horse.  Santa  Croce  is  first  of  all 
a  churchy  not  a  cemetery;  a  preaching  church  of  a 
great  revivalist  order,  the  Franciscans ;  a  church 
made  beautiful  with  Franciscan  works  of  art  by 
mighty  painters  and  cunning  sculptors;  a  whole 
with  a  meaning  to  it ;  onlv  incidentally  is  it  the 
pantheon  of  great  dead  Florentines.    If  you  want  to 


More  About  Florence  217 

derive  the  greatest  instruction  and  at  the  same  time 
the  greatest  amount  of  pleasure  from  Florence,  you 
must  visit  all  its  contents  in  this  historical  spirit. 

Just  as  distinctly  as  Santa  Croce  is  Franciscan, 
Santa  Maria  Novella  is  Dominican.  This  is  true 
of  the  church  as  a  whole,  but  still  more  distinctly 
true  of  the  so-called  Spanish  Chapel^  or  Chapel  of 
the  Corpus  Christi,  a  little  oratory  in  the  cloisters, 
which  is  a  complete  epitome  of  Dominican  the- 
ology. The  Dominicans  were  instituted  as  guar- 
dians of  the  faith  and  protectors  of  the  people 
against  heresy ;  and  they  were  the  leading  teachers 
of  the  scholastic  philosophy.  Hence,  on  the  walls  of 
the  Spanish  Chapel,  we  see,  in  the  frescoes  by 
Taddeo  Gaddi  and  the  Sienese  masters,  a  com- 
pendium of  that  philosophy  in  a  pictorial  form. 
I  will  not  explain  it  all  here ;  I  will  merely  say 
that  unless  you  take  these  frescoes  in  connection 
with  their  allegorical  meaning,  and  in  connection 
with  the  feast  of  Corpus  Christi,  then  recently  in- 
stituted,—  unless  you  mentally  compare  them  with 
the  objects  and  ideas  of  the  early  Dominicans,  they 
can  afford  you  comparatively  little  pleasure.  A 
building  like  the  Spanish  Chapel  is  not  a  picture 
gallery :  it  is  essentially  a  consistent  whole  ;  not 
an  element  in  it  which  does  not  conduce  to  the 
general  lesson. 


21 8  The  European  Tour 

I  will  say  a  few  words,  however,  just  by  way  of 
illustration,  about  another  chapel  in  the  main  body 
of  this  church,  because  it  well  exemplifies  the 
point  I  made  above  about  the  relation  of  private 
oratories  in  churches  to  the  families  who  owned 
them.  There  are  in  Santa  Maria  Novella  two 
chapels  of  the  Strozzi  family.  One,  the  most 
famous,  contains  some  magnificent  Dominican 
frescoes  by  Andrea  Orcagna,  together  with  an 
altar-piece  in  which  Christ  gives  the  keys  on  one 
hand  to  St.  Peter,  and  the  book  on  the  other  hand 
to  the  great  Dominican  saint  and  philosophical 
teacher,  Thomas  Aquinas,  who  is  thus  placed 
almost  on  a  level  with  the  papacy.  The  allegori- 
cal meaning  of  this  altar-piece  is  still  further  accen- 
tuated by  the  presence  of  the  Madonna  and  St. 
John  Baptist,  patrons  of  this  particular  church  and 
city.  The  glory  of  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  is  the 
central  idea  of  the  whole  oratory.  But  it  is  not 
this  more  famous  Strozzi  Chapel,  with  its  glorious 
picture  of  Paradise  —  a  dream  of  beauty  —  to 
which  I  would  refer  at  present ;  I  want  rather  to 
lav  stress  on  the  other  and  newer  one  which  has 
been  less  written  about,  and  which  visitors  there- 
fore less  often  examine  closely.  And  here  is  a 
brief  account  of  its  claim  to  consideration. 

It  was  formerly,  as  a  Latin  inscription  upon  it 


More  About  Florence  219 

relates,  dedicated  to  St.  John  the  Evangelist,  but 
was  afterwards  bought  by  F'dippo  Strozzi,  founder 
of  the  magnirtcent  Strozzi  Palace,  and  made  over 
by  him  to  his  personal  patrons,  St.  Philip  and  St. 
James,  ever  indivisible.  He  employed  another 
Philip,  the  great  Renaissance  painter,  Filippino 
Lippi,  to  decorate  the  walls  for  him  with  frescoes 
which  now  rank  as  some  of  their  painter's  finest 
work.  On  the  right  wall  Filippino  accordingly 
painted  a  set  of  subjects  from  the  legendary  life 
of  St.  Philip,  his  own  name-saint  as  well  as  his 
employer's,  and  the  new  patron  to  whom  the 
chapel  was  now  dedicated.  But  on  the  left  wall, 
as  if  in  compliment  to  the  dispossessed  St.  John, 
or  as  compensation  for  disturbance,  he  painted  a 
similar  series  from  the  life  of  the  Fourth  Evan- 
gelist. I  have  described  their  subjects  in  full  in 
my  Guide  to  Florence,  and  I  will  not  repeat  the 
descri/ition  here,  because  what  I  want  to  do  now 
is  not  to  dwell  upon  them  but  merely  to  point  out 
the  historical  allusiveness  of  such  a  family  chapel. 
The  end  wall,  between  these  two  sets  of  frescoes, 
contains  a  stained-glass  window,  after  a  design  by 
Filippino,  and  its  subject  is  Our  Lady,  the  patroness 
of  the  church  as  a  whole,  throned  between  St. 
Philip  and  St.  James,  patrons  of  the  Strozzi  and  of 
this  particular  chapel.     Beneath   it,  as  if  protected 


2  20  The  European  Tour 

by  his  chosen  guardians,  lies  the  tomb  of  Filippo 
Strozzi  himself,  the  originator  of  the  design,  —  a 
noble  work  of  plastic  art  by  Benedetto  da  Maiano, 
who  was  the  family  sculptor  and  architect,  and  who 
also  planned  the  Strozzi  Palace.  The  bust  of 
Filippo  Strozzi  by  this  same  Benedetto,  which 
once  adorned  this  tomb,  is  now  in  the  Louvre ; 
but  oh,  what  a  difference  between  seeing  it 
there  in  meaningless  isolation,  and  seeing  it  here 
among  the  domestic  associations  for  which  it  was 
originally  intended  !  If  you  conscientiously  visit 
one  such  chapel  as  this,  and  understand  its  mean- 
ing, you  will  never  again  be  content  to  treat  a 
church  as  if  it  were  a  scratch  collection  of  un- 
connected pictures  and  unrelated  monuments.  In 
a  picture  gallery  a  portrait  of  a  courtesan  jostles 
a  Madonna  by  Raphael ;  but  in  a  church  each 
work  fills  its  proper  place  in  a  harmonious 
composition. 

I  have  only  touched  lightly  upon  a  few  of  the 
less  celebrated  objects  in  Santa  Maria  Novella, 
because  I  am  not  here  trying  to  describe  but  merely 
to  set  you  on  the  right  road  for  understanding.  I 
have  left  unmentioned  its  most  famous  gems. 
Indeed,  if  I  were  to  describe  in  full  all  that  Santa 
Maria  contains,  I  should  have  to  write  a  great 
many  big  volumes. 


More  About  Florence  221 

These  two  churches,  Santa  Croce  and  Santa 
Maria  Novella,  are  invaluable  as  museums  of  the 
early  Giottesque  fresco-painters ;  they  show  us  the 
roots  and  mainsprings  of  Italian  painting.  They 
are  also  admirable  object-lessons  in  the  great  re- 
ligious outburst  of  the  early  Franciscan  nd  Domin- 
ican revival.  After  seeing  them,  a  visitor  ought 
to  see  the  Cathedral  and  its  adjuncts.  But  these  I 
will  not  even  attempt  to  describe.  I  will  merely 
say  that  to  a  northern  or  western  visitor,  for  whom 
art  means  pictures,  the  bronze  doors  of  the  Bap- 
tistery alone  will  be  a  marvellous  revelation.  It 
sounds  like  extravagance  to  say  so  —  until  you 
have  seen  them  ;  but  those  doors  by  themselves 
require  many  weeks  of  study.  I  do  not  mean 
merely  the  famous  eastern  doors,  by  Ghiberti, 
which  occupied  their  sculptor  for  twenty-seven 
years  —  think  of  it,  O  hurried  American  !  —  and 
which  Michael  Angelo  declared  fit  to  be  the  gates 
of  Paradise.  Those  indeed  are  beautiful,  con- 
summate, inexpressible,  perfect ;  but  they  are  not 
the  only  ones.  And  here  let  me  give  you  one 
word  of  sound  advice.  Do  not  fall  into  the 
common  error  of  thinking  you  ought  to  look  only 
at  "  the  very  best  work,"  and  neglect  the  less 
admirable,  —  especially  not  where  all  is  admirable  in 
its  way.     That  is  the  wrong  way  to  understand  the 


222  The  European  Tour 

best.  The  most  perfect  can  only  be  appreciated  by 
comparison  with  the  almost  perfect  or  rather  perfect 
which  preceded  it.  There  are  three  sets  of  these 
gates,  and  between  them  they  mark  the  progress 
of  the  art  of  sculpture  in  Tuscany.  Andrea 
Pisano's  are  the  earliest  and  simplest,  but  they  are 
very  lovely  ;  in  some  ways  the  loveliest.  Then 
come  Ghiberti's  first  set,  in  a  style  intermediate 
between  Andrea's  and  his  later  manner.  Last  of 
all  come  the  pair  which  alone  you  will  see  most 
visitors  stand  and  stare  at,  as  if  the  less  famous 
ones  were  unworthy  their  serious  attention.  This 
is  a  fatal  blunder.  When  you  see  a  man  posing 
awestruck  before  these  eastern  gates  alone,  you 
may  be  sure  he  is  a  pretender.  You  can  never 
know  much  about  art  of  any  sort  if  you  confine 
yourself  always  to  the  most  celebrated  master- 
pieces. 

In  the  Opera  del  Duomo^  again,  you  will  learn 
once  more  the  infinite  variety  of  Tuscan  art- 
handicraft.  Many  visitors  only  look  at  Luca 
della  Robbia's  Singing  Boys;  and  indeed,  one  can 
hardly  blame  them,  for  lovelier  sculpture  man 
never  invented.  But  there  are  other  objects  here 
a  little  less  famous,  yet  unspeakably  beautiful,  such 
as  the  silver  shrine  or  High  Altar  from  the  Bap- 
tistery, representing  the  life  of  St.  John  Baptist,  in 


More  About  Florence  223 

a  scries  of  reliefs  of  different  dates,  by  many  famous 
artists.  And  these  are  not  all.  The  mosaics,  the 
enamels,  the  Byzantine  needlework  —  But  1  must 
draw  a  line.  I  can  only  say  in  conclusion,  here  in 
Florence  you  will  begin  to  understand  what  1  said 
before,  that  in  Italy  art  is  an  all-pervading  presence. 

One  other  great  sight  of  Florence  demands  a 
word  in  passing,  because  it  also  is  liable  to  the 
gravest  misconceptions.  I  believe  most  Englisr- 
and  American  tourists  go  to  see  the  Monastery  oj 
San  Marco  because  it  is  Savonarola's  home,  and 
because  they  have  read  "  Romola."  I  cannot  rcac 
"  Romola  "  —  I  have  tried,  and  failed  —  but  I  can 
tell  you  of  another  and  better  way  of  seeing  San 
Marco.  Recollect  that  it  is,  first  of  all,  a  Do- 
minican house,  erected  by  the  earliest  and  greatest 
of  the  Medici  for  the  monks  of  St.  Dominic,  and 
decorated  throughout  with  Dominican  pictures  by 
the  saintly  Dominican  painter,  Fra  Angelico.  I 
am  not  going  to  speak  here  about  the  exquisite 
tenderness,  sanctity,  and  mysticism  of  that  ecstatic 
and  poetic  friar.  You  will  see  his  works  and 
understand  all  that  on  mere  inspection.  But  I 
want  to  say  a  word  or  two,  rather,  about  the 
meaning  of  his  pictures,  and  their  close  connection 
with   the  places  they   occupy. 

I  will  take  five  only,  the  five  which  first  strike 


2  24  The  European  Tour 

your  eye  as  you  enter  the  quiet  and  solemn  little 
courtyard.  They  are  the  Dominican  cycle.  The 
first  is  commonly  described  as  a  Crucifixion.  But 
it  is  not ;  it  is  St.  Dominic  embracing  the  foot  of 
the  Cross,  and  it  typifies  here  the  Devotion  of  the 
Dominican  Order.  The  next,  over  the  door  of  the 
Sacristy,  represents  St.  Peter  Martyr,  the  great 
Dominican  witness  to  Catholic  truth,  with  his 
wounded  head  and  palm  of  martyrdom ;  he  places 
his  finger  to  his  lips,  to  enforce  the  Dominican 
rule  of  silence.  This  fresco  therefore  typifies  the 
Sanctity  of  the  Dominican  Order.  Next,  over  the 
door  of  the  Chapter-House,  we  see  St.  Dominic 
once  more,  but  this  time  with  his  red  star,  his  open 
book  as  teacher,  and  his  scourge  of  rods :  he 
typifies  the  Discipline  of  the  Dominican  Order.. 
Over  the  door  of  the  Foresteria.,  again  —  the 
quarter  reserved  for  the  reception  of  strangers  and 
pilgrims,  we  get  the  famous  and  exquisite  fresco  — 
unsurpassed  in  the  world  for  tenderness  and 
beauty  —  of  two  Dominican  friars  welcoming 
Christ  in  the  garb  of  a  pilgrim  — "  Inasmuch  as 
ye  have  done  it  unto  the  least  of  these  little  ones, 
ye  have  done  it  unto  me."  This  picture  of  course 
typifies  the  Hospitality  of  the  Dominican  Order, 
Finally,  we  have,  over  another  door,  St.  Thomas 
Aquinas    with    his  open  book ;  he  was  the  great 


More  About  Florence  22c 

Dominican  teacher  and  philosopher,  and  he  typifies 
the  Learning  of  the  Dominican  Order. 

At  Santa  Maria  Novella  you  will  already  have 
seen  much  of  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  and  his  glory; 
and  by  the  time  you  have  honestly  gone  through 
San  Marco,  the  black-and-white  Dominican  robes 
will  be  quite  familiar  to  you,  and  so  will  be  the 
faces  and  features  of  their  most  distinguished 
wearers. 

As   yet,  you   will  notice,    I    have   said  nothing 
about  the  picture  galleries.     And  as  a  general  rule, 
everywhere,    I    would    advise   you    to    familiarise 
yourself  first  with  the  town,  the  architecture,  and 
the  churches,  as  well  as  with  the  local  saints  and 
local  history,  before  you  begin   to  attack  the  gal- 
leries.    Their  meaning   will    thus  become    much 
more    apparent    to    you.     For    example,   here    in 
Florence,  the   Baptistery,  which  is   the  old  cathe- 
dral, shows  you    why  St.  John  is   the  patron  of 
Florence ;  the  works   of  art   in   it   familiarise  you 
with  many  Florentine  allusions,  and  especially  with 
the  little  St.  John  Baptist  setting  out  for  the  desert, 
a  figure  which  afterwards  becomes  symbolical   to 
you  of  the  town  itself.     Santa  Reparata,  San  Za- 
nobi,  Sant*   Antonino,  and  many  other  local  saints 
will  thus  have   become  old   acquaintances  before 
you  visit  the  picture  galleries,  where  you  will  find 

15 


2  26  The  European  Tour 

them  divorced  from  their  original  surroundings. 
For  example,  at  San  Marco,  you  will  see  the  cell 
occupied  by  Cosimo  de'  Medici,  Pater  Patriae, 
when  he  went  into  occasional  retreats.  On  the 
wall  of  this  cell  is  a  fresco  by  Fra  Angelico  repre- 
senting the  Crucifixion,  with  Cosimo's  own  patron 
saint,  St.  Cosmo,  together  with  St.  John  and  St. 
Peter  Martyr,  the  last  a  Dominican ;  and  these 
two  are  the  patrons  of  his  sons,  Giovanni  and 
Piero  de*  Medici.  Cosimo  could  thus  pay  his  de- 
votions to  his  Lord,  before  the  figures  of  his  own 
patron  and  those  of  his  sons.  In  Cosimo's  own 
sleeping  cell,  behind,  is  an  Adoration  of  the  Magi, 
here  of  course  symbolical  of  worldly  rank  and 
wealth  submitting  to  the  spiritual  authority,  and 
therefore  most  appropriate  for  the  retreat  of  a  man 
in  power.  But  if  these  pictures  were  removed  to 
a  picture  gallery,  their  special  meaning  and  allusive- 
ness  would  be  largely  lost.  As  far  as  possible,  in 
my  Guides,  I  try  accordingly  to  show  the  origin 
of  such  pictures  in  galleries,  wherever  it  throws 
light  upon  the  grouping  of  the  personages.  For 
instance,  in  Venice,  St.  Cosmo  and  St.  Damian 
stand  merely  as  the  patron  saints  of  the  medical 
profession,  and  therefore  occur  mainly  in  votive 
plague-pictures,  side  by  side  with  the  recognised 
plague-saints,  St.  Sebastian  and  St.  Roch.     But  in 


More  About  Florence  227 

Florence  these  two  holy  doctors  stand  usually  as 
patrons  of  the  iMedici  family  (originally  physicians; 
their  coat  of  arms  consists  of  gilded  pills)  ;  and 
wherever  you  find  Cosmo  and  Damian  in  a  Floren- 
tine picture,  you  may  suspect  it  was  painted  for 
one  of  the  ruling  Medici.  Often  the  St.  John 
Baptist  of  Florence  stands  by  their  side,  and  some- 
times also  St.  Lawrence,  the  patron  saint  of  Lo- 
renzo the  Magnificent. 

If  you  bear  these  things  in  mind,  and  have 
already  seen  the  chief  churches,  you  will  be  in  a 
fit  position  to  visit  the  picture  galleries. 

There  are  many  of  these  in  Florence,  but  three 
stand  out  with  special  importance,  —  the  Belle  y^rtiy 
the  Uffiziy  and  the  Pitti  Palace,  I  advise  you  to 
visit  them  in  this  order. 

Of  course  I  am  not  going  to  give  you  here  a  re- 
sume of  what  I  have  written  in  my  Guide  on  these 
three  great  collections.  Space  makes  that  impos- 
sible. But  that  you  may  form  some  idea  beforehand 
of  the  sort  of  treatment  I  adopt  and  advise  you  to 
follow,  and  that  you  may  judge  whether  or  not  it 
will  meet  your  requirements,  I  will  transcribe  here 
a  few  consecutive  pages  out  of  the  various 
descriptions. 

My  first  extract  is  from  the  account  of  the 
Perugino  Room  at  the  Belle  Arti :  — 


228  The  European  Tour 

**To  the  R  of  the  doorway  is  *'!^57,  a  very  noble 
Perugino,  representing  the  Assumption  of  the  Virgin,  in  a 
mandorla,  surrounded  by  a  group  of  cherubs  in  the  same 
shape.  Her  attitude,  features,  and  expression  of  ecstatic 
adoration,  as  well  as  the  somewhat  affected  pose  of  her 
neck  and  hands,  are  all  extremely  characteristic  of  Peru- 
gino. So  arc  the  surrounding  groups  of  standing  and  fly- 
ing angels  ;  the  angel  immediately  to  the  spectator's  l 
of  the  Madonna  has  also  the  characteristic  poise  of  the 
head.  Above  is  the  Eternal  Father,  in  a  circle,  with 
adoring  angels.  Below  stand  four  Vallombrosan  saints, 
as  spectators  of  the  mystery  :  (the  picture  comes  from  the 
great  suppressed  monastery  of  Vallombrosa. )  You  will 
grow  familiar  with  this  group  in  many  other  parts  of  the 
gallery,  as  most  of  the  pictures  were  brought  here  at  the 
suppression.  The  saints  are,  San  Bernardo  degli  Uberti 
(in  cardinal's  robes)  :  San  Giovanni  Gualberto  (the 
founder)  :  St.  Benedict  (in  brown)  :  and  the  Arch- 
angel Michael.  Note  their  features.  The  figure  of  St. 
Michael,  in  particular,  may  be  well  compared  with  the 
other  exquisite  St.  Michael,  also  by  Perugino,  from  the  great 
altar-piece  in  the  Certosa  di  Pavia,  now  in  the  National 
Gallery  in  London.  This  Assumption  is  one  of  Perugino' s 
finest  and  most  characteristic  works.  It  deserves  long  and 
attentive  study.  Such  compositions,  with  a  heavenly  and 
earthly  scene  combined,  are  great  favourites  with  Umbrian 
painters.  (See  them  at  Perugia,  and  in  Raphael's  Disputa 
in  the  Vatican.)  Do  not  fail  to  notice  the  beautiful  land- 
scape background  of  the  country  about  Perugia.  Study 
this  work  as  a  model  of  Perugino  at  his  best. 


More  About  Florence  229 

*' L  wally  56,  '!' Pcrugino,  the  Descent  from  the 
Cross,  a  beautiful  composition.  The  scene  takes  pla:c 
in  characteristic  Renaissance  architecture.  The  anatomy 
and  painting  of  the  dead  nude  are  worthy  of  notice. 
Observe  the  way  in  which  tlie  Madonna's  face  and  head 
stand  out  against  the  arch  in  the  background,  as  well  as 
the  somewhat  affected  pietism  of  all  the  actors,  r,  the 
Magdalen  and  Joseph  of  Arimathea  ;  l,  St.  John  and 
Nicodemus.      Notice  their  types. 

**  Beyond  the  door,  53,  Perugino,  the  Agony  in  the 
Garden.  The  attitudes  of  the  Saviour  and  the  three 
sleeping  apostles  are  traditional.  Look  out  for  them  else- 
where. The  groups  of  soldiers  in  the  background  are 
highly  redolent  of  Perugino's  manner.  So  is  the  charm- 
ing landscape.  Compare  this  angel  with  those  in  the 
Vallombrosan  picture  first  noted  in  this  room.  Observe 
Perugino's  quaint  taste  in  head-dresses.  Also,  throughout, 
here  and  in  the  Assumption,  the  Umbrian  isolation  and 
abstractness  of  his  figures. 

**  Above,  on  this  wall,  *55,  Fra  Filippo  Lippi,  a  very 
characteristic  Madonna  and  Child  enthroned.  The 
Medici  saints,  Cosmo  and  Damian,  in  their  red  robes, 
and  two  holy  Franciscans,  St.  Francis  and  St.  Antony  of 
Padua,  stand  by.  The  faces  and  dresses  of  the  Medici 
saints  are  typical.  The  Madonna  belongs  to  the  human 
and  somewhat  round-faced  type  introduced  into  Tuscan  art 
by  Filippo  Lippi.  Note,  in  the  arcaded  niches  at  the  back, 
a  faint  reminiscence  of  the  older  method  of  painting  the 
saints  in  separate  compartments.  This  is  a  lovely  picture  ; 
do  not  hurry  away  from  it.     It  comes,  you  might  guess. 


230  The  European  Tour 

from  a  Franciscan  monastery  —  namely,  Santa  Crocc. 
I  took  you  first  to  that  church  and  Santa  Maria  in  order 
that  such  facts  miglit  be  the  more  significant  to  you. 

**  54,  Fra  Filippo  Lippi,  St.  Jerome  in  the  desert,  with 
his  lion  in  the  background,  and  his  cardinal's  hat  and  cru- 
cifix. The  impossible  rocks  smack  of  the  period.  This 
is  a  traditional  subject  which  you  will  often  meet  with. 
Don't  overlook  the  books  and  pen  which  constantly  mark 
the  translator  of  the  Vulgate. 

"52,  Cosimo  Rosselli,  St.  Barbara.  A  curious  but 
characteristic  example  of  this  harsh  though  very  power- 
ful painter.  In  the  centre  stands  St.  Barbara  herself, 
with  her  tower  and  palm  of  martyrdom,  as  if  just  rising 
from  the  throne  on  which  she  had  been  sitting.  Beneath 
her  feet  is  a  fallen  armed  figure,  sometimes  interpreted  as 
her  father,  sometimes  as  the  heathen  proconsul,  Marcian, 
who  ordered  her  execution.  The  picture,  however,  as 
the  Latin  elegiac  beneath  it  relates,  was  painted  for  the 
German  Guild  of  Florence.  Now,  St.  Barbara  was  the 
patroness  of  artillery  (the  beautiful  Palma  Vecchio  of  St. 
Barbara  at  Venice  was  painted  for  the  Venetian  Guild  of 
Bombardiers)  :  I  take  the  figure  on  whom  she  tramples, 
therefore,  though  undoubtedly  an  emperor  in  arms,  to  be 
mainly  symbolical  of  the  fallen  enemy.  In  short,  the 
picture  is  a  Triumph  of  Artillery.  To  the  l  stands  the 
St.  John  of  Florence  :  to  the  r,  St.  Mathias  the  Apostle, 
with  his  sword  of  martyrdom.  Two  charming  angels 
draw  aside  the  curtains :  a  frequent  feature.  Study  this 
as  a  typical  example  of  Cosimo  Rosselli.  It  comes  from 
the  Florentine  Church  of  the  Annunziata.'* 


More  About  Florence  231 

You  will  notice  here  how  often  the  origin  of 
the  picture  casts  a  flood  of  light  upon  its  grouping 
and  meaning. 

My  second  extract  is  from  the  account  of  the 
Hall  of  Lorenzo  Monaco  in  the  Uffixi^  where 
some  of  the  loveliest  treasures  of  Tuscan  art  are 
preserved  :  — 

**This  room  contains  some  of  the  finest  and  most  in- 
teresting works  of  the  Early  Florentine  period.  L  of 
the  door,  as  you  enter,  *i  3  lo.  Gentile  da  Fabriano  :  four 
isolated  saints,  portions  of  an  altar-piece,  with  the  Ma- 
donna (who  once  was  there)  omitted.  L,  St.  Mary 
Magdalen,  with  her  alabaster  box  of  ointment.  Next  to 
her,  St.  Nicolas  of  Bari,  with  his  golden  balls :  on  his 
robes  are  embroidered  the  Nativity,  the  Adoration  of  the 
Magi,  the  Flight  into  Egypt,  the  Massacre  of  the  Inno- 
cents, the  Presentation  in  the  Temple,  and  the  Bapdsm 
of  Christ.  Note  such  subjects  hereafter,  embroidered  on 
the  robes  of  other  bishops.  They  often  throw  light  on 
the  personages  represented.  Then,  St.  John  Baptist  of 
Florence,  as  the  ascetic  saint,  and  St.  George,  with  the 
red  cross  on  his  lance  and  shield,  a  striking  figure.  In 
the  cuspidi  above,  other  saints  and  angels.  This  picture 
comes  from  the  church  of  St.  Nicolas  in  Florence,  and 
the  Nicolas  stood  on  the  r  hand  of  Our  Lady. 

"130Z,  beneath,  Bcnozzi  Gozzoli,  Predella  :  (i) 
Marriage  of  St.  Catherine  of  Alexandria,  a  charming 
girlish  figure  :  (2)  Pieta  with  St.  John  and  the  Magda- 
len :    (3)    St.    Antony  with   his    crutch   and  book,  •'nd 


232  The  European  Tour 

St.   Benedict   holding  a  book  and  arrow.     From  Santa 
Croce. 

**  End  wall,  **  i  309,  Don  Lorenzo  Monaco.  Great 
altar-piece  of  the  Coronation  of  the  Virgin,  in  a  magnifi- 
cent tabernacle  of  three  arches.  Adequately  to  describe 
this  noble  picture,  the  only  important  work  now  remain- 
ing by  Fra  Angclico's  master,  would  require  many  pages. 
I  note  a  few  points.  Below,  the  circles  of  heaven,  with 
stars  and  angels.  Centre,  once  a  reliquary,  now  gone, 
about  which  angels  swing  censers. 

**  In  the  group  of  saints  under  the  l  arch  ;  nearest  the 
throne,  St.  John   Baptist  of  Florence  ;    then,   St.    Peter 
(keys),  and  St.  Benedict,  scourge,  (this  being  a  Camal- 
dolese-Benedictine  picture,   painted    for   Don    Lorenzo's 
own  monastery  of  the  Angeli  at  Florence :  )   above  him, 
St.  Stephen,  with  the  stones  on  his  head  ;  beside  whom 
stands  St.  Paul,  holding  his  sword  and  his  Epistle  to  the 
Romans;    then,  St.  James   the   Greater  (with  a  staff), 
St.  Antony  Abbot  (crutch)  and  other  saints  less  discerni- 
ble, among  whom  I  believe  I  detect  St.  Louis  of  France, 
and  St.  Louis  of  Toulouse.    In  the  opposite  arch  :  on  the 
extreme  r,  (to  balance  St.  Benedict)  in  white  robes,  St. 
Romuald,  founder  of  the  Camaldolese  order  (a  branch  of 
the  Benedictines  )  :  next  him,  St.  Andrew  and  St.  John 
the  Evangelist ;  behind   the  last,  St.  Lawrence,  with  his 
gridiron,    (Lorenzo's    name    saint ;  )     St.    Bartholomew 
with  his  knife  ;  and  St.  Francis  with  his  Franciscan  robes 
and  crucifix.      Between  the  last  two,  a  bishop,  probably 
San  Zanobi,  as  his  mitre  bears  the  Florentine  lily.      Be- 
tween him  and  St.  Francis  is,  I  think,  St.  Vincent.    The 


More  About  Florence 


233 


rest  I  cannot  decipher.  Observe  the  numerous  angels, 
representing  the  monastery.  In  the  cuspidi,  an  Annun- 
ciation, and  Christ  blessing.  Many  of  the  figures  on  the 
frame  may  also  be  identified.  L,  King  David,  Noah 
with  the  ark,  and  other  Old  Testament  characters.  R, 
Daniel,  Moses  with  the  stone  tables,  and  various  proph- 
ets. The  predella  contains  Bible  scenes,  and  Stories 
from  the  Life  of  St.  Benedict.  ( i )  His  death,  where 
his  disciple  St.  Maurus  sees  his  soul  ascending  to  heaven : 
(2)  his  teach  ng  in  his  monastery,  with  St.  Maurus  and 
the  young  monk  who  was  tempted  by  the  devil.  (See 
the  same  subject  in  the  very  different  St.  Benedict  series 
by  Francesco  di  Giorgio  Martini  in  the  Scuola  Toscana, 
3"  Sala.)  ^^3)  Nativity  and  (4)  Adoration  of  the  Magi : 
(5)  St.  Benedict  in  his  cell  with  Benedictine  saints,  male 
and  female :  he  sends  out  St.  Maurus  to  rescue  St.  Placi- 
dus  from  drowning:  (6)  resuscitation  of  a  novice,  killed 
by  a  falling  house  at  the  Convent  of  Monte-Cassino. 
(The  same  scenes  occur,  with  others,  in  Spinello 
Aretino's  frescoes  in  the  Sacristy  at  San  Miuiato.) 
Taking  it  all  round,  a  noble  work  for  its  date,  worth 
close  study. 

**  130^.  *  Domenico  Veneziano,  Madonna  and  Child, 
enthroned,  under  a  very  peculiar  canopy,  with  St.  John 
Baptist,  St.  Francis  (Bernard?),  San  Zanobi,  and  St. 
Lucy.  (It  was  painted  for  the  church  of  St.  Lucy  at 
Florence.)  A  hard  picture,  in  very  peculiar  colouring, 
but  with  fine  drawing  and  good  characterisation.  It 
is,  in  point  of  fact,  an  early  attempt  at  oil-paintingy  the 
secret  of  which  Domenico  had  learnt,  and  which  he  im- 


2  34  The  European  Tour 

parted  to  Andrea  del  Castagno,  who  murdered  him  in 
order  that  he  alone  might  possess  it.  The  colouring  is 
clear  and  bright,  hut  lacks  harmony  :  it  is  anything  but 
melting.  The  drawing  and  composition  remind  one  of 
Andrea  del  Castagno. 

**  24.  Loren/o  di  Credi.  Virgin  adoring  the  Child. 
The  infant  exquisite. 

♦*  1286.  =!-:=  ijotticelli's  Adoration  of  the  Mapi.  One 
of  the  painter's  finest  sacred  works,  where  all  tlic  con- 
ventional '-'emcnts  are  retained,  while  a  totally  new 
meaning  ..  given  to  the  merest  detail,  such  as  the  great 
ruined  classical  temple,  and  far  more  to  the  group  of 
attendants  on  the  Three  Kings,  all  of  whom  are  contem- 
porary Florentine  portraits.  Notice  in  the  figure  of  the 
Young  King,  to  the  r,  in  white,  (a  portrait  of  Lorenzo 
lie*  Medici,)  how  completely  Botticelli  has  transformed 
and  spiritualised  the  earlier  conception.  The  portrait 
faces  of  all  the  Three  Kings,  intlecd,  are  exquisitely 
beautiful  :  the  eldest,  seen  in  profile,  is  Cosimo  Pater 
Patriae.  Equally  fine  is  the  group  of  men  of  letters 
and  statesmen  to  the  r.  Do  not  overlook  the  poetical 
Botticellian  touch  in  the  light  gauze  veil  thrown  over 
the  Second  King's  gift,  nor  the  fur  on  his  tlrcss,  nor 
the  dainty  painting  of  the  peacock  on  the  ruin,  nor  the 
thoughtful  face  of  the  draped  figure  in  yellow,  to 
the  extreme  r,  nor  the  haughty  aristocratic  ir.ouths  of 
the  Medici  to  the  l,  nor  indeed  anything  about  this 
wonderful  picture.  Every  face  is  significant,  every  fold 
of  the  drapery  is  beautiful  and  flowing.  (From  Santa 
Maria  Novella.)" 


More  About  Florence  235 

I  will  not  make  any  extract  from  the  part  relat- 
ing to  the  Pitti  Palace^  which  I  regard  as  the  least 
interesting  of  the  great  Florentine  collections,  but 
will  go  on  at  once  to  a  more  congenial  subject. 
I  mean,  the  Bargcllo. 

Nowhere  in  Italy  will  you  feel  the  all-pcrvading- 
ness  of  Italian  art  as  you  feel  it  at  the  Bargcllo. 
The  building  was  the  old  castle  of  the  Podesta  or 
chief  magistrate  of  Florence  ;  and  it  is  fitted  up 
now  as  a  national  museum  of  sculpture  and  decora- 
tive arts.  Till  you  see  it,  you  can  never  guess 
what  decorative  arts  arc  like.  I  make  the  follow- 
ing extract  from  my  description,  merely  as  some 
clue  to  the  nature  of  its  contents  :  — 

**  The  next  room,  Sixth  Hall,  contains  bronzes,  re- 
liefs, and  statues  of  the  curly  Renaissance.  All  these 
deserve  the  closest  attention.  R  of  the  door,  St.  John 
Baptist  in  the  Desert,  by  Michdozzo,  an  early  example 
of  ths  comparative  abandonment  of  the  merely  ascetic 
ideal.  Compare  and  bear  in  mind  all  these  various 
Baptists :  their  importance  is  fundamental.  R  of  the 
door,  fine  bas-relief  by  Bcrtoldo,  of  a  battle  between  Ro- 
mans and  barbarians,  inspired  by  the  antique,  and  full  of 
classical  feeling.  The  Victories  and  nude  figures  to 
R  nnd  L  are  especially  admiralile.  Above  it,  good 
bust  of  the  Duke  of  Urbino.  Beneath,  *  Reliquary  of 
bt.  Protus  and  St.  Hyacinthus,  by  Lorenzo  Cihiberti  ; 
fine    flying    angels.     The    casCy    beyond,    contains    fine 


236  The  European  Tour 

imitation  antique  and  Renaissance  statuettes.  In  the 
centre  of  the  room,  'l-i^  Verrocchio's  beautiful  bronze 
David  with  the  head  of  Goliath,  one  of  its  sculptor's 
masterpieces.  The  head  foreshadows  Leonardo :  the 
curls  are  delicious  :  the  easy  assured  pose  may  be  com- 
pared or  contrasted  with  the  Donatello  and  the  Michael 
Angelo.  The  thin  veined  arms,  however,  (perhaps  of 
an  apprentice  model,)  are  evidently  influenced  by  the 
ascetic  mediasval  ideal  :  compare  the  figures  in  Verroc- 
chio's  (painted)  Baptism  of  Christ  in  the  Belle  Arti. 
The  whole  attitude  of  this  David,  in  spite  of  its  meagre 
limbs,  is  striking  and  graceful.  This  work  should  be 
looked  at  in  contrast  with  Donatello  on  the  one  hand 
and  with  Michael  Angelo  and  Bcnvenuto  Cellini  on  the 
other. 

**  E7id  wally  *'!'two  gilt  bronze  panels,  the  sacrifice  of 
Isaac  by  -i^  Brunelleschi  and  ^-i^  Ghiberti  respectively. 
These  were  the  panels  which  were  sent  in  by  the  two 
artists  as  specimens  of  their  handiwork  in  the  competi- 
tion for  the  Second  Gates  of  the  Baptistery  in  1402. 
The  superiority  of  Ghiberti' s  design  in  composition  and 
plastic  calm  is  very  apparent.  At  the  same  time,  the 
elements  of  conventional  treatment  common  to  the  two 
scenes  are  worth  close  comparison.  The  positions  of 
most  of  the  actors  and  accessories  are  fairly  constant. 
Observe  the  quiet  strength  and  repose  of  Ghiberti,  con- 
trasted with  the  bustle  and  strain  of  Brunelleschi.  One 
is  like  a  sculptor's  work,   the  other  like  an  engineer's. 

**  Beneath  these,  Lorenzo  Vccchictta's  fine  =i^  recum- 
bent statue  for  a  tomb,  in  which  a  successful  attempt  is 


More  About  Florence  237 

made  to  put  greater  naturalness  into  this  type  of  monu- 
ment.    Above,  good  Crucifixion  by  Bertoldo. 

**  Wall  to  the  r,  Crucifixion,  by  Donatello,  partly 
gilt.  All  the  attitudes  in  this  admirable  scene  are 
worth  careful  notice.  Observe  at  how  much  earlier  a 
date  sculpture  succeeded  in  emancipating  itself  from  con- 
ventional trammels  than  did  painting.  No  contemporary 
picture  has  the  freedom  and  ease  of  the  Roman  soldier 
nailing  the  feet  of  the  Impenitent  Thief;  nor  of  the  long- 
haired Magdalen  in  the  foreground  to  the  l  ;  nor  of  the 
semi-nude  figure  with  shield  beyond  it ;  nor  of  St.  Lon- 
ginus  (distinguished  by  his  halo)  with  his  hand  to  his 
mouth,  just  above  the  last-mentioned  figure.  Study 
closely  this  admirable   relief.      It  will   well  repay  you. 

**The  Seventh  Hall  beyond  contains  the  work  in 
bronze  of  the  High  Renaissance  up  to  the  point  where  it 
verges  towards  the  Decadence.  Among  so  many  noble 
works  as  are  contained  in  this  room,  it  is  difficult  to  make 
a  selection  :  besides,  very  few  of  them  need  explanation. 
Note,  however,  the  Ganymede  and  the  eagle,  attributed 
to  Bcnvenuto  Cellini,  with  its  admirable  case  of  poise, 
and  its  perfect  equilibrium.  (Compare  with  similar 
antiques  in  the  Ufiizi.)  Also  the  Antoninus  Pius,  which 
is  a  successful  1 5th  century  imitation  of  the  antique. 
Look  at  Daniele  da  Voltcrra's  ^^  Bust  of  Michael  Angclo  ; 
and,  close  beside  it,  Sansovino's  Christ  in  Glory.  In  a 
glass  case  is  Cellini's  sketch  in  bronze  for  the  Perseus  of 
the  Loggia  dei  Lanzi,  differing  slightly  in  detail  from  the 
model  finally  adopted.  Beside  it,  admirably  executed  but 
not  pleasing  bust  of  Cosimo  I.,  a  subject  to  try  the  greatest 


lyS  The  European  Tour 

sculptor.  Beyond,  again,  *  wax  model  of  the  Perseus, 
differing  much  more  markedly  from  the  form  at  last 
adopted.  Further  on,  -i^*  Cellini's  original  relief  for  the 
base  of  the  Perseus,  the  Release  of  Andromeda,  now 
replaced  in  the  Loggia  by  a  cast :  a  most  beautiful  piece 
of  consummate  mctal-vvork.  Close  by,  fine  Venus  by 
Giovanni  da  Bologna.  Also,  emi  zvally  his  Galatea,  a 
successful  figure.  All  the  small  works  on  this  wall  should 
be  carefully  noted.  In  the  centre  of  the  room,  Giovanni 
da  Bologna's  celebrated  ^Mercury,  too  often  copied, 
perhaps  the  lightest  work  in  bronze  ever  executed.  Its 
poise  is  wonderful.  It  seems  to  soar  naturally.  But  re- 
productions have  vulgarized  it.  Fine  bronze  candelabra 
and  other  works.  I  omit  many  fine  specimens  of  sculp- 
ture, such  as  the  copy  of  the  too  famous  Farnese  bull. 
Do  not  overlook  the  handsome  wooden  ceiling. 

**  The  stairs  to  the  upper  floor  are  in  Room  V,  with 
the  late  ivories.     Go  back  to  it. 

**  The  first  apartment  at  which  we  arrive.  Room  I, 
has  a  fine  timber  roof,  and  is  decorated  with  several 
original  frescoes,  those  on  the  end  wally  l,  being  at- 
tributed to  the  ever-dubious  Giottino.  That  to  the  l, 
a  fragment,  probably  forms  part  of  a  Joachim  expelled 
from  the  Temple  (?).  To  the  r,  meeting  of  Joachim 
and  Anna  at  the  Golden  Gate,  —  only  Joachim  and  the 
two  servants  with  the  rejected  offering  remaining.  Com- 
pare with  other  frescoes  of  corresponding  scenes,  and  you 
will  be  able  to  judge  of  these  identifications.  Centre, 
Madonna  and  Child,  with  Florentine  saints,  greatly 
injured. 


More  About  Florence  239 

"The  Entrance  tvail  has  beautiful  Delia  Ilobbia 
Madonnas,  with  crowning  hands,  angels,  and  other 
features.  Two  of  these  are  the  favourite  subject  of  the 
Madonna  Adoring  the  Child.  The  face  of  the  ^'*  central 
one  is  inexpressibly  beautiful.  Beyond  the  door.  Ma- 
donna supporting  the  dead  Christ,  by  Ghirlandajo,  a 
fine  fresco.  Further  on,  fresco  of  justice,  between  two 
suitors,  attributed  to  Rossi.  Beyond  the  window. 
Madonna  and  draped  Child,  o^  the  later  School  of 
Giotto. 

**  End  wally  more  Delia  Robbias.  Above,  by  Gio- 
vanni, Christ  and  the  woman  of  Samaria.  Beneath,  by 
Andrea  and  Luca,  Madonna  and  Child.  In  the  earlier 
type  (Luca  and  Andrea),  the  figures  are  usually  white 
on  a  blue  ground  :  later  works  of  the  same  school 
(Giovanni,  etc.)  such  as  the  Christ  and  the  Woman  o^ 
Samaria  above,  are  in  polychrome,  and  less  pleasing 

**  L  wall,  returning,  Christ  and  the  Magdalen  in  tne 
garden,  of  the  later  period.  Beneath,  in  the  predella, 
St.  Francis  receiving  the  stigmata  (compare  with  pic- 
tures), the  Resurrection,  and  the  Maries  at  the  Tomb 
Beyond  the  window,  more  Delia  Robbias ;  charming 
little  'i^  Annunciation,  good  Ascension,  -i^  Madonna  Ador- 
ing the  Child  (with  delicious  baby  St.  John  of  Florence), 
Nanvity,  and  a  lunette  of  St.  Augustin.  After  seeing 
these  Delia  Robbias,  look  out  for  similar  lunettes  and 
medallions  over  the  doors  or  arcades  of  Florentine  houses 
and  churches  (Ognissanti,  Hospital  of  San  Paolo,  Inno- 
centi,  etc.).  Beyond  the  next  window,  again.  Madonna 
Adoring  the  Child.     In  this  room  (with  the  next)  you 


240  The  European  Tour 

have   the   best   opportunity   afforded  you  of  learning   to 
admire  and  love  the  Delia  Rcbbias,  especially  Luca." 

Now,  I  do  not  for  a  moment  suppose  this  faint 
attempt  to  suggest  to  you  beforehand  what  Florence 
is  like,  and  why  you  ought  to  devote  so  much 
time  to  it,  has  been  conspicuously  successful. 
There  is  only  one  way  to  appreciate  Florence,  and 
that  is  by  going  there.  But  if  I  have  roused  your 
curiosity,  if  I  have  made  you  think  about  it  seriously, 
I  have  done  a  great  deal ;  and  I  hope  I  may  also 
have  given  you  some  useful  hints  as  to  the  kind  of 
way  in  which  you  must  see  and  study  this  queen 
of  cities.  I  am  not  afraid  that  if  I  once  get  you 
there  early  you  will  hurry  away.  Florence  burns 
itself  into  one's  heart  and  one's  brain.  The 
difficulty  is,  when  once  you  have  seen  it,  to  live 
elsewhere.  You  will  want  to  sell  all  you  have, 
and  take  an  apartment  for  the  rest  of  your  life  on 
the  western  Lung,  —  Lung'  Arno. 


CHAPTER  XV 

VENICE 


TF  you  have  taken   my    advice,   you  will  have 
-■'     gone  direct  from  Milan  to  Florence  (stopping 
only  at  Pisa).     But  I  know  very  well  you  will  not 
take  my  advice.     There  are  matters  in  which  it  is 
impossible  for  the  best-intentioned  people  to  save 
others  from  themselves ;  and  this  is  one  of  them. 
I   feel    convinced   that,  in  spite   of  the  excellent 
reasons  which  exist  for  seeing  Florence  first,  mere 
convenience  of  railway  travelling,  and  ease  in  map- 
ping out  a  plan  of  route,  will  make  everybody  go 
direct   from    Milan    to    Venice,   and    then  on    to 
Florence.     They  will  not  understand  Venice  half 
so  well  by   so  doing,  it   is    true ;  for  the    grand 
panorama    of  the    historical     development   of  art 
unrolls    itself    before    one's    eyes    nowhere    as    at 
Florence.     Still,  it  is  no  use  shutting  one's  eyes  to 
plain  facts  of  human  nature  j  and  as  I  know  by 
experience,  in  spite  of  all  I  say,  that  you  will  rush 
blindly  upon  your  fate  by  seeing   Venice    first,  I 
may  as  well  proceed  to  give  you  some  idea  as  to 
what  to  see  on  your  way  thither. 

i6 


242  The  European  Tour 

First,  however,  I  will  proceed  upon  the  improv- 
able supposition  that  you  do  take  my  advice ;  in 
which  case  you  must  make  your  way  from 
Florence  to  Venice  via  Bologna  and  Padua.  I 
recommend  you  not  to  stop  at  Bologna  on  your 
way  to  Venice  \  it  will  be  better  for  you  to  see  it 
as  you  return,  on  your  way  to  Rome.  But  to 
Padua  you  ought  to  give  a  couple  of  days  at  least ; 
though,  if  you  like,  a  very  convenient  way  of  see- 
ing it  is  not  to  stop  at  Padua  itself  (the  hotels  are 
hardly  faultless),  but  to  run  across  for  two  succes- 
sive days  by  the  early  morning  train  from  Venice, 
returning  in  the  evening.  However  that  may  be, 
it  is  worth  while  at  least  to  catch  a  glimpse  of 
Padua,  both  for  the  sake  of  its  magnificent  church, 
dedicated  to  its  local  fVanciscan  patron,  St. 
Antony  of  Padua  (here  commonly  known  simply  as 
"  il  Santo  ")  but  also  for  its  splendid  series  of 
Giottos  in  the  little  chapel  of  the  Madonna  delV 
Arena^  which  will  afford  you  a  better  and  more 
pleasing  idea  of  Giotto's  art  than  any  you  could 
derive  from  the  Florentine  churches. 

In  saying  this,  I  don't  want  you  to  suppose  I 
have  mentioned  the  only  things  you  need  go  to 
see  at  Padua.  It  is  rich  in  beautiful  things,  —  in 
fact,  if  it  were  north  of  the  Alps,  it  would  be  far 
more  famous  than   Antwerp  or  Nuremberg;  but 


Venice  243 

being  in  Italy,  well,  of  course,  it  attracts  relatively 
little  attention.  Andrea  Mantegnd' s  frescoes  in  the 
church  of  the  Eremitani  ought  to  occupy  you  for 
some  time ;  then  there  are  the  ancient  Giottesque 
frescoes  by  the  local  artists  Avanzi  and  Altichieri, 
(important  in  the  history  of  North  Italian  art) 
at  the  Cappella  San  Giorgio  —  deliciously  naive 
stories  of  the  lives  of  St.  George,  to  whom  the 
chapel  is  dedicated,  and  of  his  like-minded  sister- 
saints,  Catherine  and  Lucy ;  as  well  as  the  cele- 
brated Titians  of  the  Scuola  del  Santo.  These, 
with  the  magnificent  shrine  of  Sant*  Antonio  him- 
self, the  reliefs  by  Donatello,  Riccio,  and  Bellano, 
the  great  equestrian  statue  of  Gattamelata  by  Do- 
natello, and  the  beautiful  Palma  Vecchio  of  the 
Scuola  del  Carmine  will  take  you  at  least  two  days 
merely  to  walk  through  with  the  most  casual  in- 
spection. To  tell  you  the  truth,  that  is  why  I 
hesitate  about  sending  you  to  the  smaller  towns  of 
Italy  at  all.  You  cannot  give  them  a  week  or  two 
apiece ;  and  less  than  a  week  or  two  is  quite  in- 
adequate to  see  them  in.  It  is  absurd  to  suppose 
you  can  see  Padua  as  you  might  see  Ghent  or 
Winchester  or  Rouen. 

At  the  same  time,  it  may  strike  you  that  the 
finest  works  of  art  at  Padua  (with  the  exception 
of  the  Mantegnas)  are  by  Florentine  artists  such 


244  The  European  Tour 

as  Giotto  and  Donatello ;  and  that  will  show  you 
once  more  why  I  have  advised  you  so  strenuously 
to  go  to  Florence  first^  and  stop  there  longest. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  you  decline  to  follow  my 
advice  (as  I  know  you  will  do),  then  you  will 
probably  proceed  from  Milan  to  Venice  direct ;  in 
which  case  you  will  probably  desire  to  stop  on  the 
way  for  a  night  (or  two)  at  Verona.  Undoubtedly 
Verona  is  one  of  the  most  picturesque  of  Italian 
cities,  and  it  is  full  of  interest ;  but  if  you  see  it 
before  Florence,  it  will  not  do  you  much  good  at 
the  present  stage  of  your  acquaintance  with  Italian 
art.  It  is  too  specialised  and  too  provincial. 
However,  as  a  picturesque  town  alone,  it  is  well 
worth  seeing.  Its  combination  of  attractions  is 
considerable  —  nay,  almost  unique.  It  has  Roman 
remains  of  importance,  —  an  amphitheatre  and  a 
fine  triumphal  arch.  It  has  the  most  picturesque 
market-place  I  have  ever  seen,  surrounded  by  noble 
mediaeval  buildings.  It  has  four  or  five  splendid 
churches,  one  of  them,  the  Romanesque  San  Zeno, 
full  of  the  profoundest  interest.  It  has  the  charm- 
ing Tombs  of  the  Scaligers,  masterpieces  of  Gothic 
monumental  art.  It  has  many  excellent  pictures  ; 
and  a  master  all  of  its  own,  whom  you  cannot 
study  elsewhere,  Cavazzola,  one  of  the  most  touch- 
ing painters  of  the  High  Renaissance.     Baedeker 


Venice  245 

holds  you  out  hopes  that  all  these  sights  may  be 
seen  in  a  day.  I  should  have  said  one  day  was 
insufficient  for  San  Zeno  alone,  which  is  full  of 
detail  of  the  most  interesting  description.  Give 
Verona  at  least  two  whole  days,  four,  if  possible ; 
and  then  remember  that  you  have  but  begun  it. 

Let  me  warn  you  in  passing  to  cast  Romeo  and 
Juliet  out  of  your  mind  in  Verona.  Shakespeare 
never  was  here ;  and  the  object  shown  to  visitors 
as  Juliet's  tomb  is  a  Roman  sarcophagus.  Avoid 
such  will-o'-the-wisps,  such  romantic  false  asso- 
ciations, and  confine  yourself  to  the  realities, — 
Catullus,  Gallienus,  Theodoric  the  Goth,  the  della 
Scalas,  the  great  Veronese  painters,  Vittore  Pisano, 
Liberale  da  Verona,  the  Morones,  Girolamo  dai 
Libri,  Cavazzola,  the  Bonifazios,  Paolo  Veronese, 
and  so  forth.  These  are  surely  enough,  without 
dragging  in  mere  English  poets. 

You  will  pass  Padua  on  your  way  from  Verona 
to  Venice ;  but  I  advise  you  rather  to  go  over  and 
see  it  from  Venice. 

For  Venice  itself,  I  will  not  say  very  much. 
My  task  grows  easier.  Of  course,  there  is  noth- 
ing on  earth  so  satisfying  as  Venice.  You  cannot 
be  disappointed  with  it.  Visitors  are  often  chilled 
by  the  first  view  of  Florence.  The  Cathedral, 
the  Campanile,  the  Baptistery  fail  to  come  up  to 


246  The  European  Tour 

their  high-wrought  expectations,  —  fail  just  at  first, 
that  is  to  say,  for  the  longer  you  know  them  the 
more  you  love  them.  "Is  this  all?"  people  ask; 
*'this  rather  plain  and  unattractive  city?"  You 
have  to  find  out  Florence  by  slow  degrees  ;  to  let 
her  beauty  and  her  wealth  of  art  dawn  upon  you 
piecemeal,  in  the  Uffizi,  in  the  Belle  Arti,  in  the 
dim  aisles  of  Santa  Croce,  among  the  marvellous 
Romanesque  carvings  of  San  Miniato.  The  longer 
you  know  her,  the  more  you  love  her,  the  more 
you  see  in  her.  You  learn  at  last  that  third-rate 
churches,  like  the  Trinita  or  the  Ognissanti,  en- 
close works  of  art  which  elsewhere  would  be 
famous.  But  Venice  is  not  like  that.  Almost  as 
inexhaustible  in  the  end  as  Florence,  she  bursts 
upon  you  from  the  first  moment  with  a  glow  of 
romance,  of  grandeur,  of  beauty.  She  takes  you 
by  storm.  Years  after,  perhaps,  Florence  lives 
with  you  as  a  sweeter  memory ;  but  Venice  cap- 
tivates you  at  sight  like  a  proud  and  queenly 
woman. 

The  very  arrival  at  the  railway  station  —  else- 
where so  prosaic  —  delights  one  at  once  by  its 
strangeness  and  its  novelty.  You  approach  Venice 
nowadays,  it  is  true,  by  the  back  door,  so  to  speak ; 
she  is  a  maritime  city^  and  the  great  Doges  and 
builders  of  the  period  when  she  held  the  gorgeous 


Venice  247 

East  in  fee  laid  out  their  town  to  face  seaward  — 
to  be  approached  by  its  glorious  front  door  from 
the  Adriatic.  The  visitor  who  has  the  luck  to 
reach  her  so  to-day,  from  Port  Said  or  Alexandria, 
sails  up  through  the  navigable  channel  with  the 
domes  of  St.  Mark's  and  the  Salute  to  guide  him ; 
he  anchors  just  in  front  of  the  Dogana  di  Mare; 
and  he  lands  at  last  on  the  marble  steps  of  the 
Piazzetta,  with  the  Doge's  Palace  and  the  glories 
of  the  Piazza  straight  in  front  of  him.  He  comes 
at  once  on  a  blaze  of  gold  and  colour.  We  now- 
adays, on  the  other  hand,  creep  in  at  the  back  from 
landward,  as  Venice  was  never  intended  to  be  ap- 
proached. We  cross  the  shallow  lagoon  by  a  long 
viaduct,  and  disembark  in  the  poorest  and  least 
artistically  beautiful  quarter  of  the  sea-built  city. 
Yet  even  so,  it  is  all  Venice.  Nothing  can  detract 
from  the  delight  and  romance  of  that  first  arrival. 

You  quit  the  station,  and  go  down  to  your  gon- 
dola. You  knew  about  it  all  before,  of  course,  but 
you  did  not  realise  it.  You  were  aware  that  there 
were  and  could  be  no  horses  in  Venice  ;  but  not 
till  you  reach  that  landing  by  the  Grand  Canal  do 
you  picture  to  yourself  the  life  of  a  great  city,  all 
carried  on  entirely  by  means  of  boats.  You  take 
your  seat  in  your  gondola,  and  glide  swiftly  and 
noiselessly  down  some  side  canal,  under  mys  .erious 


248  The  European  Tour 

little  bridges,  and  past  mouldering  palaces,  till  you 
arrive  at  last  at  your  hotel  on  the  Riva  or  by  the 
front  of  the  Salute.  It  is  all  one  dream  ;  yet  a 
dream  come  true,  the  only  true  dream  in  this  world 
of  disappointments. 

Then  the  Piazza !  You  sally  forth  to  see 
Venice,  and  emerge  from  a  narrow  lane  upon  the 
great  square,  in  its  full  flood  of  sunshine.  I  am 
not  going  to  describe  it ;  words  do  not  describe 
Venice.  It  is  a  burst  of  emotions.  I  will  only 
say  that  here  at  last  you  will  exckim,  "  They  did 
not  tell  me  half!  I  expected  much;  the  reality 
far  exceeds  my  expectation." 

In  this  matter  I  always  mentally  contrast  St, 
Mark's  and  the  Great  Pyramid.  The  first  time  I 
saw  the  Pyramids  from  the  Citadel  at  Cairo,  I 
looked  across  at  them  and  felt,  "  Yes,  there  they 
are  !  The  good  old  familiar  Pyramids  o;  my  child- 
hood !  '*  When  I  saw  them  nearer,  it  was  just  the 
same;  the  actuality  added  no  points  of  detail  to 
the  mental  picture.  The  Pyramids  have  no  sculp- 
ture, no  ornament,  no  decorative  adjuncts.  But 
St.  Mark's  !  You  have  known  it  from  your  child- 
hood, you  think,  with  its  domes  and  pinnacles  ; 
and  yet,  when  you  see  it,  you  learn  at  once  that 
you  never  knew  it  at  all,  so  infinite  is  its  detail,  so 
varied  its  attractiveness.     Why,  the  outside  of  one 


Venice  249 

wall  alone  gives  you  work  for  a  week,  so  full  is  it 
of  decorative  designs,  so  rich  in  sculpture,  in  inlaid 
stone,  in  mosaic. 

St.  Mark's  alone  is  endless.  No  man  ever  knows 
St.  Mark's.  Within  and  v/ithout,  it  is  one  mass 
of  carved  figures,  of  mosaics,  of  gold  and  precious 
stones  and  marble  and  alabaster.  It  defies  de- 
scription. I  will  not  even  try  to  tell  you  how  to 
see  St.  Mark's.  You  cannot  see  it.  I  will  only 
say  this :  outside  the  church  is  a  sort  of  porch  or 
atrium,  which  itself  I  have  never  yet  succeeded 
(after  many  long  visits  to  Venice)  in  wholly  de- 
ciphering. This  atrium  alone  has  seven  domes, 
and  all  these  domes,  with  the  arches  and  wall- 
spaces  around  them,  are  encrusted  internally  with 
endless  and  quaint  mosaic  pictures.  The  first 
dome  contains  the  scenes  of  the  Creation ;  and 
adequately  to  examine  this  one  set  alone  —  Byzan- 
tine work  of  the  twelfth  century  —  requires  you  to 
stand  gazing  up  at  the  roof  till  your  neck  aches. 
I  have  spent  hours  and  hours  in  spelling  out  all  the 
subjects  in  those  seven  exterior  domes,  all  the 
obscure  Greek  or  early  Italian  saints  on  the  walls 
and  arches  of  this  porch  alone,  and  I  am  still  far 
from  having  identified  every  individual  subject. 
As  to  the  interior,  it  is  a  (juestion  of  acres.  A 
book  which    should    decipher    the    whole    of    St. 


250  The  European  Tour 

Mark's    would    run    to    three    or  four    stout    and 
closely   printed   volumes. 

1  herefore  1  do  not  ask  you  to  stop  long  enough 
in  Venice  to  see  St.  Mark's.  Human  life  extends 
on  the  average  to  only  threescore  years  and  ten  — 
which  of  course  arc  inadequate.  I  ask  you  merely 
to  remember  that  in  Venice  you  must  make  a 
choice  of  what  you  will  see,  and  be  content  with  a 
moderate  standard  of  seeing  it.  Begin  with  St. 
Mark's,  but  do  not  try  to  "  do "  it  all  at  once. 
Take  it  slowly,  a  bit  at  a  time.  Return  at  fre- 
quent intervals  (interposing  other  things)  and  add 
a  {^vj  square  yards  of  mosaic  or  of  sculpture  to 
your  examined  stock  on  each  occasion.  Sit  often 
in  the  church,  and  look  about  you  with  an  opera- 
glass  at  what  comes  nearest.  There  is  only  one 
St.  Mark's  in  Europe.  See  what  you  see  system- 
atically, and  choose  what  interests  you  most ;  but 
renounce  the  impossible  task  of  understanding  all 
of  it.  Above  all  things,  bear  in  mind  that  this 
church  was  built  by  the  Venetians,  the  greatest 
maritime  power  in  the  mediaeval  world,  and  prac- 
tically an  outlying  fragment  of  the  Byzantine 
Empire  in  the  Wesl  K>r  many  centuries,  in  order 
to  contain  the  actual  body  of  the  evangelist  St.  Mark^ 
which  they  carried  off  from  Alexandria,  and  which 
lies  to  this  day  under  the  High  Altar.      Unless  you 


Venice 


251 


appreciate  this  importance  of  the  body  of  St.  Mark, 
you  will  never  really  understand  V^enicc. 

After  St.  Mark's,  and  the  great  group  of  build- 
ings which  surround  the  Pia/'/a,  the  most  im- 
portant things  to  sec  in  Venice  are  the  pUtiires. 
But  these  again  are  best  understood  nftcr  j'ou  have 
visited  the  churches,  and  especially  the  four  great 
pla^ue-churchcs  of  different  dates,  —  St.  Sebastian, 
San  Rocco,  San  (jiobbe,  and  the  Salute.  An 
immense  deal  of  Venetian  art  and  rellLMon  centres 
round  the  plague.  Trafficking  always  with  the 
plague-stricken  I^ast,  Venice  was  specially  lialde  to 
visitations  of  this  scourge,  as  were  ail  the  other 
towns  of  the  Adriatic  ;  and  each  visitation  brought 
forth  a  whole  crop  of  new  churches,  chapels, 
and  votive  pictures.  Nowadays,  we  should  say, 
"  Overhaul  your  main  drainage  system."  In  the 
Middle  Ages  men  said,  "  Build  a  shrine  to  the  holy 
Job,  who  was  plagued  with  boils  and  blains,  or 
bring  hither  the  body  of  San  Rocco  from  Mont- 
pelier."  So  they  sent  and  stole  San  Rocco,  the 
holy  man  who  had  ministered  to  the  plague- 
stricken  till  he  was  smitten  himself,  and  built  him 
a  noble  church,  and  an  equallv  noble  charitable 
institution,  the  Scuola  di  San  Rocco.  All  these 
plague-churches  arc  full  of  plague-pictures,  a 
sufficient    account  of   which    will    appear    in    my 


252  The  European  Tour 

Historical  Guide  to  Venice,  which  I  hope  to 
have  ready  about  the  same  time  as  this  volume. 

There  is  a  votive  work  of  Titian's,  now  housed 
in  the  Salute  (the  most  imposing  but  by  far  the 
least  interesting  of  these  great  plague-churches), 
which  will  well  illustrate  the  sort  of  thing  at  which 
I  am  here  driving.  It  is  older  than  the  building 
in  which  it  now  stands.  It  was  painted  to  com- 
memorate the  plague  of  15 12 — the  same  in  which 
Giorgione  died  —  and  to  return  thanks  to  God  for 
its  cessation.  In  the  centre  St.  Mark  is  seated 
on  a  lofty  throne ;  and  to  a  mediaeval  Venetian  St. 
Mark  typified  Venice,  just  as  to  a  modern  English- 
man the  figure  of  Britannia  holding  a  trident  typi- 
fies England.  He  carries  his  Gospel  in  his  hands, 
just  to  let  you  see  that  this  is  an  Evangelist.  A 
cloud  passes  over  him  and  casts  a  shadow  upon 
him ;  Venice  is  under  a  cloud  from  the  pestilence. 
On  his  right  hand  stand  St.  Sebastian  with  his  arrows, 
always  symbolical  of  the  plague,  and  St.  Roch 
(San  Rocco),  whose  body  the  Venetians  stole  from 
Montpelier;  he  lifts  his  robe,  as  usual,  to  show  a 
plague-spot  on  his  right  thigh.  These  are  the  two 
great  patrons  against  plague.  On  the  left  stand 
St.  Cosmo  and  St.  Damian,  here  not  as  patrons  of 
the  Medici,  but  as  the  holy  physicians.  They 
hold  in  their  hands  surgical  instruments  and  pots 


Venice  253 

of  ointment.  Hence  the  whole  meaning  of  the 
picture  is  this  —  Venice  preserved  from  the  Plague 
of  1512,  by  the  potent  aid  of  our  patron  St.  Mark, 
assisted  by  the  intercession  of  our  local  plague- 
saints,  Sebastian  and  Rocco,  the  care  of  the  sainted 
leeches,  Cosmo  and  Damian,  and  the  skill  and 
devotion  of  our  medical  profession.  If  you  look 
in  the  ordinary  guide-books  you  will  find  this  com- 
plex work  described  as  "St.  Mark  Enthroned, v/ith 
other  Saints."  And  much  that  tells  you  about  it ! 
I  advise  you,  therefore,  to  begin  your  tour  of 
the  Venetian  pictures,  not  with  the  Academy,  v/hcre 
they  are  divorced  from  their  surroundings,  but  with 
the  various  churches^  where  you  see  them  in  their 
true  organic  connection  with  the  saints  or  the 
worship  for  which  they  were  designed.  The  four 
great  plague-churches  may  come  first;  after  them 
in  due  order  you  might  take  San  Giorgio  degli 
Schiavone,  where  Carpaccio's  scries  from  the  life 
of  St.  George,  painted  for  the  Dalmatian  or 
Slavonian  brotherhood  who  owned  the  church,  will 
put  you  into  the  proper  frame  of  mind  for  appre- 
ciating the  similar  series  of  St.  Ursula  and  of  the 
Holy  Cross  at  the  Academy.  When  you  have 
seen  these,  and  the  Redentore,  you  might  proceed 
to  attack  the  great  picture  gallery  itself;  and  then 
the  Doge's   Palace   (interior). 


254  The  European  Tour 

For  the  Academy  and  the  Doge's  Palace^  one  great 
point  to  be  borne  in  mind  is  the  commercial  great- 
ness and  aristocratic  constitution  of  Venice.  A 
great  many  of  the  pictures  are  curious  local  vari- 
ants or  modifications  of  the  type  so  common  else- 
where, in  which  a  votary  adores  the  Madonna  and 
Child.  But  at  Venice  the  votary  is  usually  a  Doge 
or  other  very  important  oligarch;  and  so  big  does 
he  loom  in  proportion  to  the  subject  that  we  can 
see  at  last  the  votive  picture  is  only  a  means  of 
painting  the  Doge's  portrait,  and  exhibiting  him  in 
the  full  dignity  of  his  ducal  robes.  Indeed,  in 
some  late  pictures  this  purpose  is  openly  and 
frankly  avowed;  instead  of  Our  Lady,  we  find  the 
Doge  in  the  presence  of  an  allegorical  Venice.  If 
you  visit  Venice  after  you  have  seen  Florence,  the 
sumptuousness  and  wealth  of  the  Venetian  pictures 
will  certainly  strike  you,  as  well  as  the  matronly 
and  aristocratic  type  of  the  Blessed  Virgin,  compared 
with  the  simple  and  girlish  Florentine  Madonnas. 

I  am  not  here  writing  a  Guide  to  Venice,  there- 
fore I  will  not  say  much  in  this  place  about  the 
pictures  in  the  Academy.  I  hope  by  this  time  you 
have  sufficiently  caught  at  my  general  point  of  view 
to  render  such  detail  unnecessary,  except  in  the 
presence  of  the  actual  buildings  or  sculptures  or 
mosaics  or  pictures.      I   will   only  add,  therefore, 


Venice  255 

that  you  ought  to  devote  at  least  a  month  to  Venice; 
anH  that  in  that  month  you  can  only  expect  to  get 
a  very  casual  glimpse  of  her  inexhaustible  riches. 
If  you  take  a  month,  the  greater  part  should  be 
devoted  to  St.  Mark's  and  the  Academy  ;  though 
you  must  also  see  the  four  great  plague-churches, 
San  Giorgio,  the  Frari,  and  San  Giovanni  e  Paolo. 
Unless  your  time  is  very  free,  and  your  leisure  un- 
bounded, I  would  strongly  dissuade  you  from  visit- 
ing any  of  the  lesser  sights,  such  as  the  Arsenal, 
the  galleries  of  the  private  palaces,  the  interiors  of 
the  Library,  the  Mint,  and  other  Government 
buildings,  the  minor  churches,  other  than  those 
specified,  and  the  surrounding  towns,  such  as 
Murano  and  Chioggia.  I  do  not  deny  that  an 
excursion  by  steamboat  in  the  afternoon  or  evening 
to  these  islands  and  to  the  Lido  is  useful  as  show- 
ing you  the  true  position  of  Venice ;  but  I  would 
warn  you  against  trying  to  see  them  in  the  sense 
of  visiting  their  churches  and  pictures.  You  have 
no  time  for  these  things.  Indeed,  I  hardly  know 
how  you  can  manage  to  look  at  such  almost  indis- 
pensable objects  as  San  Snlvatore,  with  its  gorgeous 
Titian  and  Carpaccio,  San  Giovanni  Crisostomo, 
with  its  exquisite  Bellini,  and  the  Madonna  dell' 
Orto,  with  its  noble  Tintorettos.  I  fear  to  advise 
you  even  to  glance  at  Palma  Vecchio's  St.  Barbara 


256  The  European  Tour 

in  Santa  Maria  Formosa,  or  at  the  extremely  inter- 
esting early  Venetian  works  in  San  Zaccaria.  How 
then  can  you  find  time  for  the  adjacent  islands  ? 

Above  all,  at  Venice  more  than  elsewhere,  I 
caution  you  strongly  against  the  idea  that  to  rush 
about  and  see  things  pell-mell  all  over  the  place 
can  be  of  any  use  to  you.  IVhat  you  see^  see 
thoroughly,^  and  see  slowly.  Chew  it  and  digest  it. 
The  habit  of  bolting  spoils  foreign  travel.  It  is 
better  to  spend  two  days  over  San  Giorgio  degli 
Schiavoni  than  to  be  able  to  boast  at  table  d'hote 
in  the  evening  that  to-day  you  crossed  the  Rialto, 
looked  into  San  Giovanni  Elemosinario,  —  "  first- 
rate  Titian  !  "  —  did  Santa  Maria  Mater  Domini, 
walked  through  the  Correr  Museum,  saw  every- 
thing in  the  Frari,  formed  a  critical  opinion  of  the 
Scuola  di  San  Rocco,  and  came  home  with  a 
splitting  headache.  In  a  week's  time  you  will 
have  forgotten  whether  the  Frari  was  at  Venice  or 
Verona,  will  think  that  Titian  painted  Tintoretto's 
Crucifixion,  and  will  believe  that  the  Pesaro 
Madonna  is  in  the  Redentore,  where  Carpaccio 
placed  it  over  the  High  Altar  as  a  monumental 
offering  to  his  friend,  Paolo  Veronese.  If  you 
wish  to  avoid  such  nightmares  as  these,  take  your 
Venice  slowly^  and  read  it  up  as  you  go  in  competent 
authorities. 


CHAPTER  XVI 


ROMEWARDS 


T  AND  is  now  in  sight.  I  see,  not  far  ahead, 
-*— '  the  end  of  my  labours.  To  say  the  truth, 
when  once  I  had  got  you  safely  landed  in  Florence, 
I  felt  that  my  task  was  almost  completed.  If  you 
have  seen  Florence,  and  seen  it  properly,  your 
education  has  passed  the  critical  stage ;  you  can 
be  largely  trusted  now  to  choose  for  yourself  vfh^tQ 
to  go  and  what  to  see.  You  have  eaten  of  the 
tree  of  knowledge  of  good  and  evil. 

At  least,  I  hope  so.  And  if  you  have  not,  well, 
I  cannot  avail  you  much.  Italy,  after  all,  must  be 
its  own  interpreter.  The  most  the  teacher  can  do 
is  to  put  you  on  the  right  track  for  understanding 
and  enjoying  it. 

So  ofF  we  start  from  Venice  Romewards.  By 
this  time,  I  hope,  you  will  have  learned  that  every 
town  in  Italy  — as  in  Europe  generally  —  is  not 
merely  "  the  place  where  you  are  to  see  '*  the 
Amphitheatre  or  St.  Mark's,  Giotto's  Campanile 
or  Raphael's  Sposalizio.     Each  is  a  whole :  each 

17 


250  The  European  Tour 

has  a  history,  a  school  of  art,  an  atmosphere  of  its 
own.  It  is  Lombard  or  Tuscan,  aristocratic  or 
despotic;  it  has  its  ruling  families  and  its  popular 
saints,  its  associations  with  Germany  or  with  the 
Byzantine  Empire,  its  architectural  traditions,  its 
preponderance  of  marble  or  mosaic  or  fresco,  its 
favourite  religious  orders,  its  enthusiasts,  its  re- 
formers. After  seeing  Florence  and  Venice,  with 
perhaps  Pisa  and  Padua  thrown  in,  you  ought  fairly 
to  have  grasped  this  truth  j  you  ought  to  see  for 
yourself  that  architecture,  painting,  sculpture, 
decoration  have  an  organic  connection  with  the 
national  life,  the  city's  type  and  temperament  and 
history.  The  value  of  works  of  art  is  thus  vastly 
enhanced,  and  their  intellectual  pleasurability  almost 
doubled  by  seeing  them  in  the  surroundings  which 
originally  inspired  them. 

It  is  largely  on  this  account,  too,  that  I  have 
tried  to  dissuade  you  from  wasting  too  much  time 
at  first  in  London  and  Paris  and  the  German 
cities.  To  see  a  picture  by  Mantegna  in  the 
Louvre  is  one  thing ;  to  see  it  at  Mantua  or  Padua 
or  Verona  in  its  original  setting,  is  quite  another. 
If  you  went  to  Dresden  before  you  went  to 
Florence,  you  would  see  there  Raphael's  Madonna 
di  San  Sisto ;  and  you  would  consider  Dresden 
mainly  as  the  place  where  that  paiticular  picture  is 


Romcwards  259 

housed.  And  in  so  doing,  you  would  form  a  false 
impression.  Just  because  Dresden  has  little 
coherency  and  congruity  of  its  own — just  because 
it  is  a  museum  of  gathered  art — a  scratch  col- 
lection—  I  have  warned  you  against  going  to  see  it 
till  you  have  seen  and  learned  the  ways  of  other 
European  cities  which  will  put  you  in  the  right 
road  for  understanding  the  inner  heart  of  Europe, 
The  less  time  you  can  afford  to  spend  in  Europe, 
the  more  necessary  is  it  for  you  to  economise  wisely 
by  getting  to  Florence  and  Venice  as  early  as 
possible. 

So  from  ^his  point  on,  my  treatment  must  be 
more  rapid.  Either  I  have  convinced  you  of  the 
justness  of  my  plan  —  in  which  case  no  more 
words  are  needed ;  or  else  I  have  not  —  in  which 
case  more  words  will  probably  fail  to  impress  you. 

You  will  return  to  Rome  via  Ferrara^  Bologna^ 
and  Florence,  About  stopping  at  the  two  first  of 
these  towns,  I  leave  you  now  to  use  your  own  judg- 
ment. The  question  of  time  must  settle  the  matter. 
Grass-grown  Ferrara  has  an  interesting  school  of 
art  of  its  own,  which  also  leads  up  to  the  Bolognesc 
masters,  by  action  and  reaction.  A  cou'^le  of 
nights  might  give  you  a  rough  idea  of  it.  Sleepy 
Bologna^  so  mediaeval,  so  modern,  so  quaintly 
jumbled,,  is  immensely  interesting ;  it  has  also  a  school 


26o  The  European  Tour 

of  art  of  its  own,  which  in  its  earlier  age  culminated 
in  Francia,  and  later  gave  birth  to  the  most  annoy- 
ing and  mannered  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
century  painters,  such  as  the  Carracci,  Guido,  and 
Domenichino,  of  whose  affected  and  intrinsically 
vulgar  works  —  painted  to  suit  the  taste  of  Popes  and 
Cardinals  —  you  will  see  more  than  enough  in  the 
dreary  Roman  galleries.  Nevertheless,  three  or 
four  days  ought  (if  possible)  to  be  devoted  to 
Bologna,  especially  as  regards  its  earliest  Christian 
remains,  some  of  which  are  most  interesting. 
Here  you  may  begin  to  take  note  of  sarcophagi. 
From  Bologna,  I  recommend  either  a  detour  of  two 
or  three  days  to  Ravenna^  or  else  (which  is  better) 
two  or  three  separate  long  day  excursions.  The 
journey  is  endless,  and  the  days  tedious;  but  still, 
i"  is  pleasanter  and  safer  so  than  stopping  the  night 
a:  Ravenna.  No  town  in  Italy  is  so  rich  as  this 
ia  early  Christian  antiquities  of  the  intermediate 
period  —  churches  and  mosaics  of  the  later  Empire, 
of  Theodoric  the  Goth  and  his  Arian  heretics,  and 
of  Justinian  and  the  Byzantines.  It  is  a  museum 
of  the  decadence.  Here  alone  in  Italy  one  can 
trace  in  full  the  long  decline  of  the  Roman 
Empire,  the  history  of  the  fourth,  fifth,  sixth, 
seventh,  and  eighth  centuries ;  here  alone  one  can 
note  how  the  classical  spirit  merges  by  degrees  into 


Romewards  261 

the  barbaric  and  mediaeval,  or  rises  once  more  into 
Byzantine  formalism.  For  myself,  I  would  say,  try 
to  see  Ravenna^  even  if  you  have  thereby  to  forego 
Naples.  You  will  find  it  far  more  instructive  and 
infinitely  more  amusing.  It  is  one  of  the  ugliest 
yet  one  of  the  most  surpassingly  and  entrancingly 
interesting  cities  in  Europe. 

From  Ravenna  and  Bologna,  return  to  Florence. 
It  would  not  be  a  bad  plan,  if  you  can  manage  it, 
to  spend  two  or  three  days  more  now  in  Florence, 
before  starting  for  Rome,  in  order  to  see  again 
certain  objects  by  the  light  cast  on  them  from  the 
reflections  of  Venice.  Compare,  compare,  com- 
pare !  That  is  the  whole  gospel  of  the  study  of 
art.  You  will  find  every  day  things  that  you  saw 
before  take  new  meanings  from  what  you  have 
learnt  later. 

Then,  on  to  Rome.  On  your  way  you  can  take 
OrvietOy  without  diverging  from  the  main  route  ;  or, 
by  a  slight  detour^  Siena^  or  else  Perugia.  Of  the 
three,  Siena  is  the  most  important,  Perugia  the 
least  so.  But  if  time  permits,  try  to  see  all  three  ; 
they  are  infinitely  more  valuable  and  delightful  than 
Munich  or  Dresden.  I  will  not  now  insist  on  the 
sort  of  thing  you  should  see  in  each,  or  the  way 
you  should  see  it.  Siena  is  a  town  of  the  highest 
artistic  rank,  with  a  school  of  its  own  which  dates 


262  The  European  Tour 

back  very  far,  and  which  largely  influenced  the 
school  of  Florence.  It  has  also  a  cathedral  which, 
internally  at  least,  is  the  most  satisfying  in  Italy  — 
as  a  Gothic  building,  for  St.  Mark's  stands  apart 
without  peer  or  second.  Besides,  nothing  in  Italy 
is  quite  so  typically  and  mediaevally  Italian  as 
Siena ;  it  seems  to  have  stood  still  since  the  days 
of  Pinturicchio ;  as  I  walk  along  the  streets,  I 
always  think  to  myself  with  a  little  start  of  ever- 
recurrent  yet  fresh  surprise,  "To  me,  this  is  a 
wonderful  relic  of  the  Middle  Ages  —  but  these 
people  live  here!  To  them  this  is  just  the  nine- 
teenth century.'*  The  Pinturicchios  in  the 
cathedral  library  alone  are  worth  all  London. 
Orvieto  has  an  astounding  cathedral,  almost  as 
noble  as  Siena,  and  externally  superior.  But  you 
cannot  see  everything,  Perugia  does  not  boast  any 
one  building  so  fine  as  these,  but  its  attractions  are 
manifold,  and  it  is  indispensable  for  a  comprehen- 
sion of  Umbrian  art  in  every  direction.  It  has 
also,  in  the  Tombs  of  the  Folumnii^  the  most  acces- 
sible remains  of  the  ancient  Etruscans.  Assist 
can  be  easily  combined  in  the  same  tour  with 
Perugia. 

As  for  Rome  itself^  I  shall  not  attempt  here  to 
give  you  more  than  the  most  generalised  outline. 
There  are  too  many  Romes ;  you  must  choose  for 


Romewards  263 

yourself  which  one  amongst  them  specially  interests 
you. 

Unless  you  are  a  classical  scholar  and  antiquary, 
I  do  not  advise  you  to  give  much  time  to  the  ruins 
of  Ancient  Rome ;  and //'you  are  a  classical  scholar 
and  antiquary,  you  will  know  for  yourself  what  to 
look  at,  or  will  have  recourse  to  good  books  of 
reference  on  the  subject,  such  as  Burn's  Rome  and 
the  Campagndy  Middleton's  Ancient  Rome,  Lanciani, 
etc.  All  I  shall  do  here  will  be  to  suggest  to  the 
ordinary  tourist  what  things  at  Rome  he  ought  to 
see,  and  what  he  may  safely  neglect  as  unimportant. 

A  few  buildings  of  Ancient  Rome  still  survive  in  a 
form  which  renders  it  worth  while  to  visit  them. 
Such  are  the  Flavian  Amphitheatre,  commonly 
called  the  Colosseum^  the  Pantheon^  the  Arch  of  Con- 
stantine^  the  Column  of  Trajan^  the  Column  of  Marcus 
AureliuSy  and  the  little  round  temple  of  Hercules 
Victor  or  of  the  Mater  Matuta,  commonly  called 
the  Temple  of  Vesta.  I  should  advise  you  to 
begin  your  Rome  chronologically,  in  a  rough  ivay, 
by  visiting  these  first ;  for  I  am  not  writing  Tor 
people  who  want  to  see  the  Wall  of  Servius  Tul- 
lius  or  the  Cloaca  Maxima.  These  things  are  for 
specialists ;  when  you  are  in  London,  you  will  not 
enquire  into  the  Outfall  of  the  Metropolitan  Sewers 
at  Barking  ;  and  I  do  not  see  why,  when  you  are  at 


264  The  European  Tour 

Rome,  you  should  enquire  into  the  Main  Drainage 
of  the  ancient  republic.  My  counsel  is,  therefore, 
see  first  those  larger  buildings  of  Ancient  Rome 
which  still  stand  tolerably  intact^  and  which  '-ill 
give  you  an  idea  of  the  position,  extent,  and  gran- 
deur of  the  antique  city.  In  order  to  get  this  idea 
fleshed  out  in  full,  however,  you  must  also  spend  a 
little  time  in  exploring  the  waste  district  to  the 
southeast  of  the  existing  city,  si-  ce  Modern  Rome 
has  spread  northward  and  westward  of  the  old 
populated  area.  Stroll  out  here  often,  and  look  for 
yourself  at  the  hills  of  the  earlier  population. 

For  the  more  ruinous  portions  of  the  old  town, 
I  have  a  very  moderate  regard.  They  consist 
largely  of  uninteresting  ground  plans.  Of  course, 
if  you  are  saturated  with  the  literature  of  ancient 
Rome,  —  if  you  know  your  Horace,  your  Martial, 
your  Juvenal  by  heart,  —  you  will  find  a  ^jleasure 
of  association  in  all  these  spots  ;  and  if  it  really 
delights  you  to  recognise  under  modern  aliases  the 
Gardens  of  Sallust  and  the  Fountain  of  Egeria  and 
the  Arch  of  the  Money-changers,  I  would  not  deny 
you  that  pleasure  of  identification  :  all  I  mean  is, 
don't  let  your  guide-book  persuade  you  (an  Ameri- 
can young  lady,  let  us  say,  with  no  first-hand 
knowledge  of  the  Epodes  or  the  l^hird  Satire)  that 
you    must    pump    up    a    false  enthusiasm   for  the 


Romewards  265 

Porta  Capena  or  go  wild  with  joy  over  the  Portico 
of  Octavia.  Confine  yourself  for  the  most  part  to 
those  objects  in  Ancient  Rome  which  you  can 
really  understand,  and  whose  artistic  importance 
gives  them  a  living  value  to  you.  It  is  better  to 
spend  doubtful  hours  in  the  galleries  of  the  Vatican 
than  to  waste  them  on  poking  out  potsherds  on  the 
Monte  Testaccio. 

As  a  good  example  of  what  you  need  not  see  to 
any  great  extent,  I  would  venture  to  mention  the 
Palatine  Hill.  This  most  famous  and  most  ancient 
of  the  Roman  heights  is  a  mere  shapeless  mass  of 
ruined  brick-work.  I  do  not  mean,  of  course,  that 
you  are  not  to  visit  it  at  all ;  far  be  it  from  me  to 
say  so :  the  Palatine  was  the  oldest  Rome  of  all, 
the  primitive  hill-fortress  of  the  real  or  mythical 
Romulus,  the  antique  Roma  ^adrata  or  Square 
Rome,  portions  of  whose  very  early  wall  of  cir- 
cumvallation  have  been  brought  to  light  in  various 
places ;  and  it  remained  to  the  end  the  centre  and 
most  important  site  of  Imperial  Rome,  with  the 
Palace  of  the  Caesars  crowning  its  crest  and  oc- 
cupying the  site  of  the  immemorial  home  of  the 
%tv^n  Kings.  Therefore  I  would  say  to  you,  go 
early  in  your  visit  for  a  stroll  on  the  Palatine^  and 
try  to  understand  from  it  its  relation  to  the  Capitol, 
the  Forum,  the  Aventinc,  the  Esquiline,  and  the 


266  The  European  Tour 

other  chief  height*?  or  depressions  or  plains  of 
Ancient  Rome.  Use  it  topographically  as  your 
centre  and  standard  of  reference ;  orient  yourself 
by  means  of  it ;  recollect  always  when  you  are 
dealing  with  Ancient  Rome  that  the  Palatine  is  its 
focus  and  starting-point,  as  the  Forum  is  the  seat 
of  its  corporate  life.  But  do  not  (unless  you  feel 
a  genuine  interest  in  identifying  the  spots)  feel 
constrained  to  go  over  it  all,  guide-book  in  hand, 
laboriously  satisfying  yourself  as  to  each  English 
or  German  scholar's  reason  for  asserting  or  deny- 
ing that  this  particular  mass  of  broken  brick  is  or 
is  not  the  Auguratorium  or  the  Palace  of  Severus. 
Neglect  detail.  Take  the  Palatine  as  a  whole; 
look  at  the  few  objects  it  contains  of  artistic 
interest ;  examine  the  mural  paintings  in  the  House 
of  Livia  ;  cast  a  glance  at  the  altar  with  the  figures 
of  the  Lares  ;  make  the  best  vou  can  of  it :  but  Jo 
not,  oh,  do  not  imagine  you  are  bound  in  honour 
to  decide  questions  about  which  doctors  disagree, 
or  to  inspect  at  great  length  every  basement  room 
in  the  Palace  of  Augustus.  The  Caesars  them- 
selves never  saw  those  rooms :  the  domestic 
arrangements  of  the  imperial  slaves  may  surely 
be  left  to  competent  antiquaries. 

If  you  bear  this  principle  in  mind,  you  will  find 
to  your  relief  that  you  can  reduce  your  investiga- 


Romewards  267 

tion  of  Ancient  Rome  within  reasonable  limits  of 
time,  which  I  will  not  presume  to  define  for  you. 
First  of  all,  I  would  say,  orient  yourself  by  the 
Palatine,  the  Capitol,  and  a  few  other  points. 
Then  visit  the  great  classical  buildings  mentioned 
above,  which  are  not  in  ruins.  After  that,  try  to 
form  a  general  conception  of  the  Forum  Romanum 
and  the  buildings  or  bases  of  buildings  which  it 
contains,  paying  most  attention  to  the  tolerably 
perfect  and  artistic  remains,  like  the  Arch  of  Sep- 
timius  Severus^  the  j^rch  of  Titus^  and  the  marble 
reliefs  near  the  Column  of  Phocas.  Devote  rela- 
tively less  time  to  the  more  ruinous  objects,  such 
as  the  Colonnade  of  the  Twelve  Gods^  the  Temple  of 
Fcspasian^  the  Temple  of  Castor  and  Pollux^  or  the 
Rostra ;  and  give  very  little  indeed  to  such  mere 
fragmentary  architectural  groundplans  as  the  Basil- 
ica Julia^  the  Temple  of  Vesta^  the  Basilica  of  Con- 
stantine^  and  the  Temple  of  Concord^  which  are  of 
purely  historical  and  antiquarian  importance.  If 
you  have  never  read  Livy,  vv^hy  should  you  be 
anxious  to  settle  the  exact  site  of  some  building 
which  Livy  mentions  in  a  difficult  or  doubtful 
passage  ?  You  are  not  always  trying  in  New  York 
to  discover  where  particular  events  occurred  :  if 
you  are  no  classic,  you  need  not  in  Rome  either. 
Still  less  would  I  advise  you  (save  in  the  ex- 


268  The  European  Tour 

ceptional  case  where  a  special  literary  or  historical 
interest  leads  you)  to  trouble  much  about  the  sites 
of  the  various  Fora  of  the  Cecsars^  now  almost  over- 
grown and  hidden  by  modern  houses.  It  is  mere 
waste  of  time  for  you,  a  six-monthly  visitor,  to  go 
out  of  your  way  to  hunt  up  the  fragments  of  the 
Ulpian  Basilica,  of  the  Forum  of  Nerva,  of  the 
Temple  of  Minerva,  of  the  Temple  of  Mars  Ultor, 
and  so  forth  through  the  long  catalogue  of  minor 
ruins.  If  you  happen  to  come  across  them  in 
your  walks,  identify  them  by  all  means ;  but  don't 
run  about  to  discover  them.  Remember,  this  is 
Rome;  it  has  ten  thousand  claims  of  the  first  im- 
portance on  your  time  and  attention ;  and  if  you 
worry  about  the  Pyramid  of  Cestius  or  the  House 
of  Crescentius,  you  will  neglect  in  the  end  the 
weightier  matters  of  the  law,  —  the  sculpture  of  the 
Capitol  or  the  mosaics  of  Santa  Maria  Maggiore. 
Let  minor  things  slide,  and  stick  to  essentials. 

In  this  general  condemnation,  however,  I  will 
not  include  the  Baths  or  Thermae,  especially  those 
of  Caracalla  and  of  Diocletian.  The  latter  con- 
tain the  Church  of  Santa  Maria  degli  Angeli,  and 
also  a  good  Museum  of  Antiques,  which  will  begin 
to  introduce  you  to  the  important  subject  of  ancient 
sculpture.  You  will  have  had  glimpses  of  ancient 
plastic  art  already  at  Paris  and  Florence,  but  it  is 


Romewards  269 

at  Rome  that  you  will  first  catch  full  sight  of  the 
gods  and  goddesses. 

And  here,  if  you  take  my  advice,  you  will  se** 
out  on  your  investigation  by  visiting  those  far  more 
important  collections  of  ancient  art  which  above 
all  things  else  make  a  visit  to  Rome  obligatory. 
Take  your  subject  chronologically,  as  I  have  tried 
to  make  you  take  other  cities.  Begin  with  Ancient 
Rome  itself  —  its  hills,  its  Forum,  its  temples,  its 
palaces,  its  deserted  site,  its  few  existing  sculptured 
monuments,  such  as  the  Arches  of  Severus  and 
of  Constantine.  Then  go  on  to  the  collections  of 
statuary  and  other  works  of  art,  the  product  of 
excavations,  now  laid  up  in  the  CapitoUne^  the 
Vatican^  and  other  museums.  See  the  framework 
or  skeleton  first ;  examine  the  fragments  torn  from 
it  or  rescued  from  it  afterwards.  If  you  will  see 
Rome  in  this  way,  you  will  run  some  chance  of 
partially  understanding  it  ;  if  you  insist  upon  taking 
it  up  and  down,  unchronologically,  anyhow  —  on 
visiting  it  by  "  districts  "  —  on  rushing  from,  the 
Raphaels  at  the  Vatican  to  the  antique  sculpture  in 
the  Capitoline,  and  then  from  the  Gladiator  or  the 
Venus  to  the  Guidos,  the  Byzantinesque  mosaics, 
and  the  mediaeval  frescoes,  —  you  will  never  grasp 
it.     Follow  a  definite  plan,  and  follow  it  logically. 

At  the  same  time,  I  am  aware  that  the  flesh  is 


^270  The  European  Tour 

weak.  I  do  not  say  you  must  see  all  Ancient 
Rome  first,  all  transitional  Rome  next,  then  all 
mediaeval  Rome,  and  all  the  Renaissance.  That 
were  to  ask  too  much  of  a  latter-day  tourist.  I 
think  it  will  be  sufficient  if  you  see  first  the 
external  framework  of  Ancient  Rome ;  after  that, 
take  a  day  now  and  again  at  the  Capitoline  Museum 
or  in  the  Sculpture  Galleries  of  the  Vatican,  inter- 
spersing them  with  other  (alternate)  visits  to  the 
Picture  Galleries  or  to  Raphael's  frescoes.  Begin 
Ancient  and  Modern  Rome  separately,  but  see 
each  chronologically.  All  I  ask  is  that  you  form 
to  yourself  first  a  clear  idea  of  the  emplacement  and 
main  monuments  of  the  ancient  town,  and  then 
keep  an  eye  on  the  transition  to  its  mediaeval  and 
modern  representatives. 

It  will  be  best,  I  believe,  to  set  out  on  your 
investigation  of  the  classical  sculpture  with  the 
museum  in  the  Baths  of  Diocletian  ;  then  go  on 
to  the  two  Capitoline  collections  ;  and  finish  off 
with  the  vast  treasures  of  the  Vatican.  It  will  do 
you  no  harm  now,  however,  while  you  are  at  work 
on  the  Cap'fjl^  to  see  its  other  great  sights  at  the 
same  time  —  I  do  not  mean  of  course  in  one  day 
—  Heaven  forbid  — but  in  connection  with  one  an- 
other. Only,  remember  all  the  time  to  place  each 
part  chronologically  in  its  proper  niche.      Don't 


Romewards  271 

jumble  the  centuries.  The  Capitol  is  a  whole,  a 
city  within  a  city;  and  though  it  has  been  entirely 
transformed  in  modern  days,  there  are  advantages 
in  examining  it  alone,  stratum  by  stratum,  from 
its  earliest  republican  remains  to  its  equestrian 
statue  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  its  very  ancient  Chris- 
tian church  of  Santa  Maria  in  Ara  Caeli,  its  trans- 
formed palaces  by  Michael  Angelo,  and  its  purely 
recent  alterations  and  additions.  Indeed,  I  incline 
to  say,  it  would  be  best  to  take  the  entire  group  of 
the  Capitoline  Hill  en  hloc^  as  early  as  possible  after 
mastering  the  main  mass  of  Ancient  Rome. 

Of  the  Vatican  Sculpture  Gallery^  I  need  not  say 
much.  Once  I  allow  ^'ou  to  enter  it,  the  difliculty 
will  be  to  get  you  out  again.  For  here  are  col- 
lected in  noble  and  worthy  rooms  the  finest 
masterpieces  of  plastic  art  which  antiquity  has 
bequeathed  to  us. 

Give  many,  many  days  to  the  various  collections 
of  antique  sculpture. 

And  now  my  difficulties  as  cicerone  thicken. 
For  though  I  am  not  anticipating  my  Guide  to 
Rome,  but  merely  trying  to  make  you  feel  the 
vastness  and  many-sidedness  of  the  Eternal  City, 
yet  I  cannot  deny  that  the  task  of  leading  you 
about  it  is  an  onerous  and  responsible  one.  After 
Pagan  Rome  we  come  to  Early  Christian  and  Tran^ 


2/2  The  European  Tour 

sit'ional  Rome^  in  itself  a  most  fascinating  and  end- 
less study.  Here  you  ought  certainly  to  bc^in 
your  study  with  the  Catacombs^  which  form  the 
first  chapter  in  the  long  and  curious  history  of 
Roman  Christianity.  With  the  entirely  classical 
Christian  art  of  the  earliest  Catacomb  pictures 
you  may  compare  the  equally  classical  sculpture 
of  the  earliest  Christian  sarcophagi  at  the  Vatican 
and  the  Lateran,  many  of  which  have  been  brought 
from  these  cemeteries.  Side  by  side  with  the  be- 
ginnings of  Christian  art  in  the  great  honeycombed 
underground  city,  indeed,  you  ought  to  examine 
the  Christian  Museum  of  the  Lateran^  a  collection 
of  reliefs,  statues,  inscriptions,  and  mosaics  of  the 
utmost  importance  as  showing  you  the  origins  of 
ideas  and  designs  in  much  later  painting  and  sculp- 
ture. Do  not  mix  up  in  your  mind  the  various 
collections  in  the  Lateran,  pagan,  early  Christian, 
and  modern,  with  ignorant  indiscriminativeness, 
but  visit  each  in  its  proper  order,  for  comparison 
with  objects  of  the  same  type  and  period.  Thus 
only  can  the  priceless  riches  of  the  Lateran  yield 
their  full  value  up  to  you. 

At  the  same  time  that  you  are  visiting  these  col- 
lections of  early  Christian  art,  I  recommend  you 
also  to  examine  such  other  relics  of  the  same  age 
as  the  Baptistery  of  the  Lateran  itself,  which  dates 


Romewards  273 

back  to  Pope  Sixtus  III.  in  the  fifth  century :  as 
well  as  the  Lateran  Churchy  which,  though  im- 
mensely remodelled,  still  stands  upon  the  site  of 
Constantine's  basilica.  You  should  also  visit  the 
Scala  Santa,  brought  from  Pilate's  palace  at  Jeru- 
salem by  the  Empress  Helena ;  and  the  mosaics 
copied  from  the  Triclinium  of  Leo  III.,  repre- 
senting the  restoration  of  the  Western  Empire  by 
Charlemagne.  I  will  not  try  here  to  suggest  the 
ideally  best  order  for  visiting  the  older  churches  of 
Rome  or  the  mosaics  in  the  newer  ones  which 
have  survived  from  older  buildings ;  I  will  only 
say  in  this  regard  that  you  may  comparatively  neg- 
lect dull  modern  erections  like  St.  Peter's  —  the 
most  disappointing  church  in  Christendom  —  in 
order  to  find  time  for  the  beautiful  fifth-century 
mosaics  of  Santa  Maria  Maggiore^  the  similar 
series  at  San  Paolo  fuori  le  Mura^  and  the  quaint 
relics  of  the  sixth  century  in  SS.  Cosmo  and  Da- 
mian.  Interesting  in  quite  another  way  is  the 
ancient  church  of  San  Clemente^  with  its  super- 
posed buildings  of  three  different  ages.  The  Cce- 
lian  Hill^  once  more,  is  covered  with  old  churches 
and  monasteries  of  the  profoundest  interest,  often 
lonely  and  dilapidated,  but  affording  the  true  clue 
to  much  that  is  difficult  in  the  art  of  later  ages. 

Such  buildings  as  these  are  worth  ten  gaudy  St, 

18 


274  '^he  European  Tour 

Peters.  It  is  this  that  ycu  can  get  at  Rome  alone ; 
and  I  advise  you  to  ferret  out  a  few  such  strange 
old  oratories  and  frescoes  at  hap-hazard,  instead  of 
wasting  your  time  among  the  seventeenth-century 
inanities  of  the  great  private  picture  galleries,  the 
whole  of  which  are  not  worth  the  mosaics  of 
S.  Prassede  and  of  Santa  Maria  Maggiore.  Indeed, 
unless  you  have  abundance  of  leisure,  I  would  say, 
do  not  trouble  about  the  Barberini  or  the  Borghese 
collections ;  they  are  of  fourth-rate  interest. 

For  Medieval  and  Renaissance  Rome^  you  will 
now  need  no  guide.  It  is  the  least  interesting 
Rome  of  all ;  yet  it  is  the  common  and  familiar 
Rome  of  the  average  tourist.  Much  of  it  centres 
round  St.  Peter's  and  the  main  building  of  the 
yatican^  where  artists  of  all  ages  and  all  Italian 
schools  have  added  their  part,  often  incongruously 
enough,  to  the  general  adornment  of  the  home  of 
the  Papacy.  Fra  Angelico  covered  with  delicate 
frescoes  the  walls  of  the  dainty  little  Cappella  Nic- 
colina  ;  but  you  can  feel  at  once,  as  you  gaze  on 
them, that  the  saintly  friar's  heart  was  not  here; 
he  could  not  paint  for  triple-crowned  popes  and 
scarlet-robed  cardinals  as  he  painted  for  his  simple- 
souled  ascetics  at  San  Marco.  The  Sistine  Chapel, 
again,  is  a  perfect  museum  of  the  art  of  the  fifteenth- 
century  Tuscans  and  Umbrians,  —  Perugino,  Pin- 


Romev/ards  275 

turicchio,  Botticelli,  Ghirlandajo,  Cosimo  Rosselli, 
and  Luca  Signorelli ;  but  none  is  at  his  best  :  and 
you  will  see  at  once  that  this  heterogeneous  col- 
lectior  of  dissimilar  painters  would  be  quite 
meaningless  to  you  if  you  had  not  studied  their 
other  works  first  at  Florence,  Siena,  Orvieto,  and 
Perugia.  That  is  why  you  must  not  go  to  Rome 
at  the  beginning :  you  will  find  there,  not  the 
history  and  evolution  of  art,  but  a  few  stray  works 
of  a  io.^  supreme  and  disconnected  artists. 

Most  visitors,  I  notice,  make,  furthermore,  the 
worst  use  of  Rome  by  their  foolish  and  sheep-like 
habit  of  running  after  what  they  consider  the  great 
masterpieces.  "  We  have  not  time  for  everything,'* 
they  say ;  "  let  us  concentrate  ourselves  on  what 
is  most  important."  So  they  go  to  the  Vatican, 
and  in  the  Slstine  Chapel  they  see  only  Michael 
Angelo's  ceiling  and  his  Last  Judgment ;  I  have 
even  known  good  folk  declare  with  emphasis  that 
they  have  often  spent  hours  in  the  Sistine  Chapel, 
and  that  there  are  no  works  there  except  Michael 
Angelo's.  If  you  visit  Rome  in  this  spirit,  Rome 
will  teach  you  the  least  that  is  possible  for  her. 
Of  course,  even  so,  you  will  learn  much  —  you 
must  learn  much :  it  is  n't  conceivable  that  a 
man  should  drive  from  the  Porta  del  Popolo  to 
the    Forum   and  the  Colosseum  without  learning 


276  The  European  Tour 

much  —  it  h  n't  conceivable  that  he  should  walk 
once  through  the  main  chambers  of  the  Vatican 
without  coming  away  impressed  and  in  a  sense 
altered.  But  if  you  want  to  learn  tbe  most  that 
Rome  can  teach  you,  you  will  not  confine  yourself 
to  Michael  Angelo's  ceiling  and  Raphael's  Stanze  ; 
you  will  see  a  few  parts  thoroughly,  of  great  men 
and  of  almost  as  great,  and  not  rush  about  with  blind 
zeal  after  the  most  famous  pictures  and  the  most 
frequently  photographed  pieces  of  statuary.  In  the 
opinion  of  many  competent  judges,  there  are  other 
objects  in  the  Sistine  Chapel  quite  as  well  worth 
looking  at  as  the  Last  Judgment. 

I  am  not  going  to  dwell  at  length  upon  the 
treasures  of  the  Vatican.  You  must,  of  course,  go 
there  often  ;  but  in  my  opinion,  most  visitors  to 
Rome  give  too  much  of  their  time  to  this  one 
vast  collection,  and  too  little  to  the  Lateran,  the 
old  churches,  and  the  scattered  objects.  Too 
much  relatively,  I  mean,  of  course,  for  the  Vatican, 
if  it  comes  to  that,  can  never  be  seen.  Each  of 
Raphael's  rooms  requires  separate  study;  so  do  the 
Loggie  ;  and  then  there  is  the  Picture  Gallery  as 
well,  which,  though  not  rich  in  number  of  works, 
contains  not  a  few  deeply  interesting  masterpieces. 
Here  again,  as  you  wander  among  the  Titians,  the 
Bellinis,   the    Fra   Angelicos,    the    Raphaels,   the 


Rome  wards  277 

Peruginos,  the  Pinturicchios,  you  will  understand 
at  last  how  little  you  could  understand  all  these  if 
you  had  unwisely  come  here  before  visiting  Venice 
and  Florence.  The  two  great  local  capitals  in- 
troduce you  by  orderly  degrees  to  the  knowledge 
of  art  in  its  local  distinctness ;  at  Rome  you  get 
only  a  confused  and  mingled  idea  of  all  schools 
and  ages. 

Among  the  things  at  the  Vatican  which  you 
cannot  afford  to  miss  is  the  Etruscan  collection. 

What  more  can  I  say  of  Rome  ?  I  hardly 
know.  Its  vastness  overwhelms  me.  It  is  five 
distinct  cities.  I  will  take,  as  I  have  done  else- 
where, a  single  building  as  a  specimen  —  not  a 
building,  some  would  say,  of  the  very  first  order  of 
interest  —  and  try  to  show  you,  or  rather  suggest  to 
you,  how  to  see  it. 

Santa  Maria  Maggiore^  or  St.  Mary  of  the 
Snows,  the  conspicuous  church  which  crowns  the 
Esquiline  hill,  does  not  look  from  outside  a  par- 
ticularly ancient  or  beautiful  building.  You  might 
take  it  at  first  for  a  mere  modern  cathedral.  That 
is  a  thing  to  which  you  have  to  get  accustomed  as  best 
you  may  at  Rome  ;  for  the  seventeenth  and  eigh- 
teenth centuries  tried  their  little  hardest  to  destroy 
Roman  history  and  ruthlessly  improved  almost 
everything  in  the  city  into  their  own  image.     But 


27 S  Ths  European  Tour 

Santa  Maria  is  nevertheless  a  very  ancient  church, 
and  it  occupies  a  site  of  immemorial  antiquity. 
There  are  some  eighty  St.  Marys,  I  believe,  in 
Rome  ;  but  this  is  the  largest,  and  probably  the  oldest 
of  all.  Somewhere  about  the  year  355,  shortly  after 
Christianity  triumphed  in  the  city,  the  Blessed 
Virgin,  then  much  less  revered  than  afterwards, 
appeared  in  a  dream  to  Pope  Liberius  (who  died  in 
366),  and  commanded  him  to  erect  a  church  to  her 
on  the  spot  where  he  should  find  next  morning  a 
fall  of  snow.  As  it  was  August  the  5th,  Liberius 
hesitated  to  believe  the  vision ;  but  he  discovered 
next  day  that  the  Patrician  John  had  had  a  similar 
dream  at  the  same  motncnt.  The  two,  much 
wondering,  went  toget  ler  to  the  summit  of  the 
Esquiline,  and  found  the  snow  which  Our  Lady 
had  foretold  to  them.  Thereupon  they  erected  a 
Basilica  on  the  spot,  called  after  the  Pope's  name 
the  Basilica  Liberiana,  which  it  still  officially 
retains.  Of  this  oldest  church,  few  or  no  remains 
exist ;  but  the  name  of  Santa  Maria  ad  Nives 
(St.  Mary  at  the  Snow)  still  recalls  the  miracle, 
and  the  5th  of  August  on  which  it  occurred  is  still 
the  church's  chief  festival,  with  those  of  the 
Nativity  and  the  Assumption. 

In    430,  once  more,    a    great    Council    sat    at 
Ephesus,   to   consider    among   other     things   the 


Romewards  279 

position  and  cult  of  the  Blessed  Virgin.  About 
this  subject  a  schism  or  difference  of  opinion  had 
grown  up  in  the  church.  One  party,  following 
Nestorius,  maintained  that  in  Christ  the  two 
natures,  human  and  divine,  remained  separate,  and 
that  therefore  Mary,  the  mother  of  the  man,  was 
not  (as  believers  already  began  to  call  her)  the 
Theot(ikos,  or  Mother  of  God.  The  Monophy- 
sites,  on  the  other  hand,  maintained  that  in  Christ 
the  two  natures,  human  and  divine,  were  blended 
in  one,  and  that  therefore  the  Blessed  Virgin  was 
truly  in  very  deed  the  Mother  of  God.  The 
Council  of  Ephesus  condemned  the  Nestorians  as 
heretics  ;  and  thenceforth  the  church  sanctioned 
the  representation  of  the  Madonna  and  Child,  and 
the  title  of  Mother  of  God  as  applied  to  the 
Virgin. 

In  432,  accordingly,  just  after  the  settlement  of 
this  important  question.  Pope  Sixtus  III.  decided  to 
rebuild  the  Basilica  Liberiana  in  a  style  more  worthy 
of  the  Madonna's  increased  importance.  He 
therefore  erected  a  new  basilica,  which  he  conse- 
crated under  the  name  of  Sancta  Maria  Mater  Dei, 
which  the  Council  had  just  decided  to  be  orthodox. 
Thus  Santa  Maria  Maggiore  must  be  looked  upon 
from  the  beginning  as  a  manifesto,  so  to  speak,  of 
triumphant  Mariolatry  over  the  heretical  Nestorians  j 


28o  The  European  Tour 

and  everything  it  contains  bears  witness  to  this 
day  to  the  greatness  of  the  Blessed  Virgin  as  the 
chosen  Theotokos.  If  you  enter  the  church,  you 
will  find  that  the  nave  of  Pope  Sixtus's  building 
still  remains,  with  its  ancient  marble  columns,  and 
forms  the  finest  old  basilican  interior  in  the  city. 
Not  less  remarkable  are  its  noble  mosaics  of  the 
fifth  century,  the  finest  specimens  of  classical 
Christian  art  in  Rome,  interesting  alike  from  their 
importance  in  the  history  of  design,  and  from  their 
close  connection  with  the  life  of  Our  Lady. 
They  represent  events  in  the  story  of  the  Madonna, 
such  as  the  Annunciation,  the  Adoration  of  the 
Magi,  and  the  infancy  of  Christ.  Fully  to  under- 
stand these  mosaics,  however,  you  ought  to  read  up 
beforehand  the  excellent  account  of  them  in  the  first 
volume  of  Kugler's  Italian  Schools  of  Painting 
(Layard's  edition),  and  also  the  scattered  notices 
of  the  Council  of  Ephesus  in  Mrs.  Jameson's 
admirable  Legends  of  the  Madonna. 

In  the  twelfth  century,  once  more,  when  the  cult 
of  the  Blessed  Virgin  began  to  receive  a  fresh 
impetus  in  Western  Europe,  during  the  religious 
fervour  of  the  Crusades,  the  church  was  remodelled 
in  the  mediaeval  style.  On  the  facade  of  this 
renovated  building,  the  thirteenth-century  artists, 
later  on,  inserted  a  set  of  beautiful  mosaics,  now  re- 


Romewards  281 

moved  to  the  loggia  above,  from  which  (till  recent 
events)  the  Pope  on  the  festival  of  the  Assumption 
(August  15)  used  to  pronounce  his  benediction  from 
this  church  of  Our  Lady  the  Mother  of  God,  urbi 
et  orbi.  These  mosaics  represent  Our  Lady  at  the 
right  hand  of  Christ,  accompanied  by  the  chief 
apostles,  with  John  the  Baptist ;  below  are  shown  the 
visions  of  Pope  Liberius  and  the  Patrician  John, 
and  their  tracing  of  the  site  on  the  newly  fallen 
snow.  In  the  apse  of  the  tribune  again,  are  still 
finer  thirteenth-century  mosaics  by  Jacopo  Turriti, 
including  the  beautiful  and  famous  Coronation  of 
the  Virgin  which  is  engraved  both  in  Kugler  and 
in  Mrs.  Jameson.  There  is  nothing  lovelier  in  the 
art  of  the  transitional  period. 

Later  on,  once  more,  the  church  underwent  still 
further  changes.  When  Gregory  XL,  yielding 
to  the  solicitations  of  St.  Catherine  of  Siena, 
succeeded  in  bringing  back  the  Papacy  from  its 
"  seventy  years  of  Babylonish  captivity "  at 
Avignon  to  Rome,  he  built  (or  rather  heightened), 
in  gratitude  to  Our  Lady  for  his  restoration  to  the 
seat  of  St.  Peter,  the  great  western  campanile  of 
Sancta  Maria  Maggiore,  now  the  highest  tower  in 
the  city.  In  the  fifteenth  century,  again,  the  build- 
ing was  deprived  of  its  mediaeval  picturesqueness,  and 
reduced  to  Renaissance  straightness  and  uniformity. 


282  The  European  Tour 

Of  the  two  large  dome-covered  side-chapels,  the 
Sixtine  was  added  by  Pope  Sixtus  V.  in  1586,  and 
the  Borghese  opposite  it  by  Pope  Paul  V.  in  161 1. 
The  last-named  oratory  is  covered  throughout  with 
frescoes  of  the  decadence,  uninteresting  indeed  as 
works  of  art,  but  containing  a  singular  and  doctri- 
naily  valuable  Glorification  of  the  Blessed  Virgin, 
and  of  all  those  saints  who  have  specially  furthered 
her  honour  —  such  as  St.  John  of  Damascus  and 
St.  Ildefonso  miraculously  rewarded  for  writing  in 
defence  of  her  cult  —  as  well  as  representations  of 
the  discomfiture  of  heretics  or  schismatics  who 
opposed  her  glory  —  the  miserable  deaths  of  Julian 
the  Apostate,  of  Leo  IV.,  who  destroyed  her  images, 
and  of  Constantine  IV.,  another  famous  iconoclast. 
Last  of  all,  Clement  X.  remodelled  the  exterior  of 
the  tribune,  and  Benedict  XIV.  employed  Ferdi- 
nando  Fuga  to  erect  the  existing  ugly  and  vulgar 
facade,  which  no  doubt  deters  many  hasty  visitors 
from  even  exploring  the  beautiful  interior. 

From  first  to  last,  then,  Santa  Maria  Maggiore, 
of  which  I  have  here  given  but  a  most  generalised 
account,  must  be  accepted  as  a  historical  monument 
of  the  growth  of  Mariolatry\  and  a  gauge  of  the 
point  that  cult  had  reached  in  each  generation. 
Whoever  visits  such  a  church  ought  to  have  read 
up  beforehand   its  architecture   and  its  annals  as 


Romewards  283 

thoroughly  as  he  is  able,  and  ought  then  to  follow  up 
these  clues  intelligently  and  carefully,  by  identify- 
ing each  stage  in  this  strange  eventful  history. 

Rome  is  full  of  such  deposits  of  stratified  art  — 
lying  layer  above  layer,  and  only  to  he  deciphered 
by  care  and  observation.  That  is  why  you  should 
visit  Rome  last,  and  read  it  by  the  light  of  what 
you  have  learned  elsewhere. 

I  desist  at  last.  For  Rome  is  endless.  If  I 
follow  its  example,  I  may  possibly  weary  you. 


CHAPTER   XVII 

AFTER    ROME 

A  ND  now  that  I  have  once  steered  you  safely 
•*  ^  to  Rome,  and  se'^n  you  fairly  through  it, 
I  don't  much  care  what  you  do  with  yourself 
afterward.  By  this  time,  I  hope  and  even  ven- 
ture to  believe,  you  are  capable  of  taking  care  of 
yourself;  you  have  learned  a  method.  It  is  the 
method  alone  that  I  have  been  anxious  all  along  to 
impress  upon  you.  Once  you  have  acquired  it, 
you  can  be  trusted  to  walk  alone ;  wherever  you 
go  and  whatever  you  see,  you  will  at  least  know 
how  to  see  it. 

Nevertheless,  I  will  offer  here  a  few  much  more 
cursory  suggestions   for  your  further  touring. 

Naturally,  after  Rome,  you  will  go  on  to  Naples, 
And  the  interest  of  Naples  is  almost  all  antique; 
so  that  on  our  general  principle  of  retrogressing 
slowly  from  the  known  to  the  unknown,  it  ought 
to  come  in  precisely  at  this  period.  Geography 
here  assists  my  principles.  The  best  time  to  see 
Naples,  too,  is  perhaps  just  when  cold  begins  to 


After  Rome  285 

drive  you  southward  from  Rome.  You  will  then 
find  Sorrento,  Amalfi,  Capri,  and  other  beauty- 
spots  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Naples  extremely 
pleasant  places  to  visit.  The  objects  of  interest  in 
the  Naples  district  are  mainly  the  bay  and  Vesu- 
vius —  nature ;  or,  in  human  handiwork,  Pompeii 
and  the  remains  from  Pompeii  in  the  Naples 
Museum.  The  town  itself  is  naught,  indeed,  save 
for  that  saving  Museum ;  it  is  merely  the  point  of 
departure  for  visiting  Pompeii^  Pastum^  Pozzuoli^ 
Baics^  and  the  Capo  Miseno.  You  cannot  go  far 
wrong  in  seeing  any  of  these;  while  at  Ravello  and 
other  mountain  towns  about  you  will  find  interest- 
ing relics  of  the  early  Romanesque  period^  which 
will  afford  a  pleasing  relief  from  the  pure  classicism 
of  the  district  as  a  whole.  Undoubtedly,  however, 
the  things  to  see  at  Naples  are  the  marble  and 
bronze  sculpture  and  the  antique  frescoes.  To  these 
especially  I  advise  you  to  devote  yourself. 

From  Naples,  it  is  easy  to  run  across  to  Palermo, 
and  see  Sicily.  Palermo  itself,  and  Monreale^  have 
transitional  mosaics  of  the  Norman  period  of  the 
deepest  interest ;  elsewhere  the  great  attraction  of 
Sicily  is  its  splendid  series  of  Greek  temples.^  which 
carry  us  back  to  the  beginnings  of  classical  sculp- 
ture and  architecture.  I  will  not  map  out  a  route. 
You  will  find  your  way  for  yourself,  I  doubt  not, 


286  The  European  Tour 

to  SelinuntOy  Girgenti^  Syracuse^  Catania^  Taortnina^ 
Messina. 

These  are  trips  for  the  winter  months,  say  from 
November  to  March  or  April.  In  spring,  you  may 
go  north  again^  spending  a  short  time  to  compare 
notes  and  mark  progress  in  Rome  and  Florence. 
You  will  discover,  after  Naples  and  Sicily,  that 
many  things  in  Rome  take  a  fresh  meaning  for  you. 
On  your  return,  I  would  advise  you  to  look  espe- 
cially at  Ancient  Rome,  by  the  light  thrown  ^n  it 
from  Pompeii  and   the  Sicilian  temples. 

The  way  northward  in  the  later  spring  might 
well  be  by  Verona^  the  Brenner^  Meran  (or  the 
Dolomites^  if  you  prefer  it),  and  so  to  Innsbruck, 
Here  you  might  fairly  start  your  consideration  of 
German  art,  other  than  Rhenish.  From  Inns- 
bruck, continue  to  Munich^  or  else  diverge  to  the 
Sal%kammergut.  Of  course,  endless  picturesque 
objects  and  places  stud  all  this  subalpine  country  ; 
but  you  cannot  see  all,  and  my  advice  to  you  is : 
stick  to  what  is  most  important.  "  But  that,"  you 
will  say,  "  is  exactly  the  opposite  advice  from  the 
counsel  you  gave  us  in  the  Roman  galleries ! " 
Not  quite.  I  meant  in  that  case,  do  not  confine 
your  attention  to  the  most  praised  objects,  because, 
in  the  first  place,  they  cannot  be  understood  in 
isolation,  and,  in  the  second  place,  they  have  not 


After  Rome  287 

always  been  wisely  selected.  I  mean  here,  on  the 
other  hand,  do  confine  your  attention  to  what  will 
teach  you  most ;  it  is  as  beautiful  as  the  other,  and 
much  more  lastingly  valuable.  By  turning  aside 
to  visit  some  "  charming  picturesque  old  German 
town  "  which  some  friend  has  discovered,  you  may 
waste  a  day  which  might  better  have  been  devoted 
to  Orvieto  or  Perugia,  to  Assisi  or  Pavia. 

Munich  is  a  delightful  town  in  its  way,  with  a 
purely  artificial  modern  quarter,  and  a  nucleus  of 
old  Bavarian  architecture  worth  all  the  rest  put 
together.  Its  main  interest,  however,  is  modern 
and  museumish.  It  depends  upon  its  collections. 
Of  these  there  are  four.  The  Old  Pictures  include 
several  good  examples  of  the  Rhenish  School, 
which  you  will  now  realise  in  its  parental  relations 
with  Venice  ;  besides  several  excellent  Hemings 
(Mcmling,  Van  dcr  Weyden,  Gerard  David, 
Quentin  Matsys);  and  also  a  fine  collection  of 
the  more  native  Swabian  and  Franconian  School, 
(Wohlgemuth,  Holbein,  and  Durcr,  the  last-named 
of  whom  will  here  first  become  really  known  to 
you.)  The  Italians  are  likewise  well  represented  ; 
and  you  will  be  glad  that  you  have  visited  Italy 
before  being  turned  loose  upon  this  heterogeneous 
scratch  lot  of  Raphaels,  Peruginos,  Palma  Vecchios, 
and  Titians.     You  will  also  find  some  charming 


288  The  European  Tour 

Rubenses ;  I  use  the  adjective  advisedly,  for  here, 
and  only  here,  Rubens  is  sometimes  positively 
charming.  The  New  Pinakothek  will  not  deipain 
you  long ;  but  the  Glyptothek^  w^ith  the  i^ginetan 
sculptures,  will  delight  and  attract  you.  If  you 
have  been  in  Sicily,  these  archaic  Greek  sculptures 
will  compare  interestingly  with  those  of  Selinunto; 
and  if  you  have  not  been  there,  you  will  be  in- 
troduced for  the  first  time  to  a  deliciously  naive 
and  captivating  moment  in  the  evolution  of  plastic 
art.  The  other  great  collection,  far  less  important, 
is  that  of  the  Decorative  Arts. 

Munich  as  a  whole  is  thus  emphatically  a  place 
to  see  after  you  have  seen  the  birthplaces  of  the 
various  arts  it  now  hospitably  houses.  In  itself,  it 
is  merely  a  clean  and  well-built  South  German 
capital. 

After  Munich,  Nuremberg.  Here  you  touch 
ground  for  Germany  outside  the  Rhineland ;  for 
Nuremberg  was  the  centre  of  trade  in  mediaeval 
and  Renaissance  Europe  between  North  and  South 
Germany.  It  is  still  highly  picturesque,  though  of 
late  much  spoiled  by  factories  ;  and  as  the  home 
of  Albert  Durer  it  deserves  a  visit.  But  a  couple 
of  days  may  suffice — judging  at  least  by  an  Italian 
standard.  I  will  add,  too,  that  after  seeing  Italy 
you  will  be  able  to  see  more  elsewhere  in  a  shorter 


After  Rome  289 

time;  you  have  learned  the  alphabet,  and  can  now 
read  straight  off  almost  at  sight  what  before  you 
had  to  spell  out  with  time  and  toil  from  painful 
hieroglyphics. 

Unless  Prague  beckons  you  off  the  line  (and  I 
do  not  recommend  it)  you  may  go  direct  from 
Nuremberg  to  Dresden.  Even  more  than  Munich, 
the  Saxon  capital  is  a  town  of  collections.  You 
ought  to  see  it ;  but  you  can  see  it  easily.  I  am 
writing,  of  course,  still  from  the  point  of  view  of 
the  general  tourist.  You  may  happen  to  be  musi- 
cal ;  and  in  that  case  Dresden  will  naturally  attract 
you  for  a  longer  stay ;  just  as  you  will  also  desire 
to  go  to  Bayreuth,  if  you  are  in  Europe  during  the 
festival.  These  things  lie  outside  my  beat;  and 
the  musical  will  know  where  to  go  for  information. 
Taken  as  a  town  to  see,  you  can  see  Dresden  on 
the  strength  of  what  you  have  already  learnt  in 
Italy.  I  may  add  that  Guides  to  Munich  and 
Dresden  will  in  time  be  added  to  my  Historical 
Series. 

Mention  of  Bayreuth  makes  me  think  of  the 
Oberammergau  Passion  Play.  About  all  such  func- 
tions, from  Holy  Week  at  Rome  (now  practically 
obsolete)  down  to  Royal  Jubilees  and  Coronations, 
my  advice  would  be,  stay  severely  away  from  them. 
They  waste  time,  and  they  are  not  so  important 

19 


290  The  European  Tour 

as  the  permanent  sights  of  Europe,  There  are 
people  who  will  go  to  Venice,  I  know,  to  see  a 
Universal  Exhibition.  They  will  not  go  for 
Bellini,  Titian,  Tintoret,  but  they  will  go  for 
biscuits,  sewing  machines,  type-writers,  and  apple- 
parers.  I  do  not  write  for  these.  Why  should  I  ? 
They  know  what  they  like,  and  need  no  man's 
counsel. 

Berlin  I  regard  as  a  needless  luxury. 

After  Germany,  what  ?  Well,  if  you  take  my 
advice,  go  home  to  America.^  and  chew  the  cud  of 
contemplation.  Think  it  all  over.  You  can  "  do 
Spain,"  of  course,  if  you  are  bo  minded  j  but  I 
strongly  dissuade  you.  Indeed,  I  think  the  tour 
here  sketched  out,  even  if  extended  over  six 
months  or  a  year,  is  quite  as  much  as  any  healthy 
human  brain  is  capable  at  one  time  of  even  par- 
tially assimilating.  To  say  the  truth,  it  must  result 
in  mental  indigestion.  I  would  never  recommend 
a  European  to  see  so  much  on  end.  It  is  more 
than  he  can  correlate.  But  I  allow  that  the  in- 
terposition of  the  Atlantic  does  make  a  certain 
difference ;  once  here,  the  American  naturally 
wants  to  get  his  money's  worth,  and  to  be  repaid 
for  his  seven  days  of  speechless  misery.  There- 
fore I  will  allow  that  he  may  perhaps  do  the 
Grand  Tour  —  England,  Paris,  Belgium,  the  Rhine, 


After  Rome  291 

Italy,  Germany  —  all  at  one  fell  swoop;  provided 
always  he  does  not  absolutely  bolt  it.  I  have  tried 
to  discourage  bolting.  1  have  put  you  in  the  way 
of  seeing  Europe  instead  of  rushing  through  it. 
You  will  spoil  all  if,  after  all  my  pains,  you  at- 
tempt to  add  Spain,  Egypt,  Algeria,  the  Holy 
Land,  Constantinople. 

Go  home,  then,  quietly,  and  ruminate.  Let 
what  you  have  seen  sink  in  and  change  you.  Read 
as  much  as  you  like ;  read,  read,  by  all  means : 
don't  think  Europe  has  sunk  to  the  bottom  of  the 
sea  because  you  no  longer  behold  it.  It  is  there, 
seething,  throbbing,  palpitating  as  ever.  Continue 
your  studies  in  books,  and  form  clear  ideas  of  what 
you  want  to  see  next  time  you  come  over.  Then, 
perhaps,  you  may  add  to  your  trophies  Spain  and 
the  morning-lands  of  Islam.  But  if  this  bock  has 
succeeded  in  its  purpose,  I  think  it  much  more 
hxkely  your  reading  meanwhile  will  suggest  to  you 
that  you  have  not  seen  half  enough  yet  of  France, 
of  Belgium,  above  all,  of  Italy.  I  linger  ever 
on  that  loved  name  Italy  !  You  will  return  to 
Europe,  when  chance  favours,  determined  to  look 
up  a  Delia  Robbia  here,  a  Romanesque  fresco 
there;  you  will  regret  that  you  missed  the  shrine 
of  St.  Augustine,  or  failed  to  observe  the  sarcoph- 
agus of  Junius  Bassus.     Even  if  you  extend  your 


292  The  European  Tour 

visit  that  second  time  to  Cairo,  say,  and  Luxor 
you  will  first  turn  out  of  your  way  to  visit  some 
church  in  Provence  or  some  picture  at  Spello  of 
which  you  have  read  meanwhile ;  you  will  want  to 
see  a  sculptured  stone  in  the  Scotch  Highlands,  or 
to  re-examine  a  half-defaced  fresco  from  Pompeii 
at  Naples.  You  will  have  learned  what  interests 
you ;  and  when  at  last  you  reach  mouldering 
Cairo,  you  will  desire  to  see,  not  merely  the 
Pyramids  and  the  Mosque  of  Mehemet  Ali,  but 
some  old  brown-faced  Madonna  at  the  Coptic 
church  of  Abu  Sirgeh,  or  some  black  image  of 
Pasht  at  the  Ghizeh  Museum.  If  you  have 
reached  that  point,  then  Europe  indeed  has  told 
you  its  story,  —  a  story  that  relatively  few  among 
its  own  toiling  millions  either  know  or  care  about, 
but  that  to  us  of  the  new  world  comes  back  to-day 
with  a  strange  mingled  sense  of  antiquity  and 
novelty. 

So  here  I  leave  you,  by  the  steps  of  the  Dresden 
Museum,  with  the  glow  of  the  Sistine  Madonna 
still  shed  upon  your  face.  Or  leave  you,  save  for 
a  few  apologetic  remarks,  which  I  shall  more  con- 
veniently relegate  to  a  parting  chapter. 


A^ 


CHAPTER    XVIII 

THE    author's    apology 

ND  now,  at  the  very  end,  I  am  going  to 
answer  a  few  criticisms  which  I  know  have 
been  at  the  tip  of  your  tongue  ever  since  you 
got  past  my  first  three  or  four  chapters,  "Why 
is  this  man  so  dead  set  on  instructing  us  ?  "  you 
ask.  "  Why  can't  he  allow  us  now  and  again  to 
amuse  ourselves?  Are  we  always  to  be  trotting 
about,  looking  close  at  the  shapes  of  haloes  and 
the  traces  of  Mantegna's  influence  on  Bellini? 
May  n't  we  sometimes  go  to  a  park  or  a  theatre  ? 
May  n't  we  sometimes  have  a  day  ofF,  —  a  Saturday 
half-holiday,  like  Bunthorne  in  Patience?  Must 
we  never  relax  sufficiently  to  indulge  in  a  glass  of 
Bavarian  beer  and  a  cigarette  at  a  cafe?  Ay, 
marry,  may  you  !  My  dear  sir  or  madam,  you  can 
certainly  do  all  these  things  and  welcome.  I  do 
them  myself,  —  all  save  the  Bavarian  beer,  which 
does  n't  agree  with  me,  and  the  cigarette,  which 
produces  unpleasant  internal  symptoms.  I  prefer 
a  glass  of  Brauneberger  or  of  good  old   Malvasia. 


294  "^^c  European  Tour 

But  you  will  admit,  it  does  not  need  a  special 
guid  J  to  tell  you  about  these  things.  I  do  not  feel 
called  upon  to  recommend  you  the  particular  restau- 
rant in  the  Galleria  Vittorio  Emanuele  at  Milan 
which  sells  the  best  rum  punch  in  small  china  tea- 
cups, so  innocent-looking  that  you  can  drink  it  before 
the  very  face  of  a  teetotal  archdeacon.  I  am  not 
eager  to  point  out  to  you  the  shop  in  the  Montagne 
de  la  Cour  at  Brussels  where  you  can  have  after- 
noon tea  with  fresh  strawberry  tartlets  which 
remind  one  at  once  of  Jan  van  Eyck  and  Paradise. 
It  is  not  my  function  to  describe  the  Paris  music- 
halls,  or  to  show  you  the  way  to  the  doubtfully 
joyous  cafes  chantants  of  Montmartre.  All  these 
things,  good,  bad,  or  indifferent,  those  who  desire 
them  can  fmd  out  for  themselves.  The  detail  of 
life  requires  no  cicerone. 

My  task  has  been  rather  to  suggest  you  a  point 
of  view  of  Europe  as  a  whole  which  will  give  you 
in  the  end  even  more  solid  pleasure  than  the  straw- 
berry tartlets,  excellent  as  they  are.  I  do  not 
despise  strawberries  ;  on  the  contrary,  I  will  engage 
to  eat  as  many  as  you  care  to  pay  for.  I  have  not 
said  a  word  in  this  book  about  the  green  huitres  de 
Marenne  at  Nice,  nor  about  the  Marseillais  way  of 
dressing  bouillabaisse.  I  did  not  feel  called  upon  to 
do  so.     But  don't  imagine  on  that  account  I  think 


The  Author's  Apology         295 

the  honest  tourist  must  never  think  of  anything 
but  Madonnas.  Several  admirable  and  noteworthy 
things  in  Europe  are  more  recent  than  the  Crusades. 
My  plan  does  not  include  them,  —  that  is  all ;  and 
you  can  find  out  everything  you  need  to  know 
about  them  without  my  telling  you. 

Let  me  give  a  more  serious  parallel.     Personally, 
I  happen  to  be  an  enthusiastic  botanist.     Wherever 
1  find    myself  in    Switzerland,  Italy,    the   Tyrol, 
Algeria,   my  attention    is    almost    equally  divided 
between  man's  handicraft  or  arts  and  the  local  flora. 
Yet    I    have    not   said    a    word    here    about    the 
orchids  of  the  Apennines,  nor  about  the  gentians 
and  globe-flowers  of  the  alpine  springtide.     Why  ? 
Because  most  American  travellers  are  not  botanists. 
Those    who    are    not,    can     see    for     themselves 
that    the    anemones   on    the    Riviera    are    scarlet 
and  purple,  that  the  narcissus  covers  the  ground 
with  cloth  of  gold  ;  those  who  are,  will  know  that 
the  way  to  learn  about  all  these  exquisite  creatures, 
if  they  have  time  to  learn  about  them,  is  to  buy  a 
local  Flora.     As  a  rule,  tourists  have  not  time  for 
these  things ;  and  I  think  they  are  right.     If  one 
spends  one's  life  in  Europe,  one  can  manage  to 
intercalate    the  ferns   and   buttercups    among    the 
churches  and  museums ;  to  each  its  season.     But 
if  one  comes  from  America  for  a  trip  of  a  few 


296  The  European  Tour 

months,  unless  the  interest  in  science  is  very 
strong,  it  is  not  worth  while  spending  time  on 
scientific  studies  which  can  be  almost  equally  well 
pursued  in  America.  Take  from  Europe  what  is 
most  peculiarly  its  own.  Nature  is  everywhere ; 
Fra  Angelico  and  Donatello  are  only  in   Florence. 

On  this  account,  in  my  Historical  Guides,  I  do 
not  usually  mention  fauna,  flora,  geology,  or  aspect 
of  country ;  nor  do  I  mention  natural-history 
museums,  botanical  and  zoological  gardens,  public 
libraries,  or  other  objects,  however  important, 
which  are  not  historically  or  artistically  interesting. 
My  design  is  to  lead  the  tourist  who  visits  a  town 
for  the  general  education  and  pleasure  it  can  afford 
to  learn  something  about  its  growth,  its  arts,  its 
buildings,  its  history.  The  innumerable  other 
sources  of  human  interest  it  contains  I  leave  on 
one  side,  not  because  they  do  not  interest  me,  nor 
again  because  I  expect  them  not  to  interest  others, 
but  because  they  are  alien  to  the  purpose  and  scope 
of  these  particular  handbooks.  I  conceive  that  I 
have  something  to  tell  you  which  you  cannot  so 
conveniently  and  compendiously  obtain  elsewhere ; 
and  if  I  am  right  in  that  conception,  I  have  jus- 
tified my  existence.  For  all  else,  you  will  go  to 
Baedeker  or  Murray. 

Finally,  a  word  as  to  books  to  read,  from  this 


The  Author's  Apology         297 

special  point    of  view  of  culture.      If  possible,   I 
recommend  you  to  take  with  you  on  the  sea  voyage 
Layard's  edition  of  Kugler's  Italian  Schools  of  Paint- 
ings Mrs.  Jameson's  Sacred  and  Legendary  Jrt,  and 
Mrs.  Jameson's  Legends  0/ the  Madonna^  and  to  read 
them  in  the   intervals  of  more   painful  experience. 
These     should     be    your     constant      companions 
throughout    Europe;    they    will    help    to    unravel 
more  of  its  secret  than  any  other  books  you  can 
easily  carry.     For  special  places,  consult  the  list 
of  local  authorities  I  give  in   my  separate  Guides. 
Do    not   read   diffuse   and    wordy   books ;   confine 
yourself  to  works  of  solid  information,  whose  state- 
ments   bear    directly    upon    the    buildings,    cities, 
pictures,  or    statues  you  are   actually    engaged  in 

observing. 

And  so  —  good-bye  !      Enjoy  your  Europe  ! 


